Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics Across North America

Floating Trees

386 c. d. wright from Steal Away Floating Trees a bed is left open to a mirror a mirror gazes long and hard at a bed light fingers the house with its own acoustics one of them writes this down one has paper bed of swollen creeks and theories and coils bed of eyes and leaky pens much of the night the air touches arms arms extend themselves to air their torsos turning toward a roll of sound: thunder night of coon scat and vandalized headstones night of deep kisses and catamenia his face by this light: saurian hers: ash like the tissue of a hornets’ nest one scans the aisle of firs the faint blue line of them one looks out: sans serif C. D. Wright | 387 “Didn’t I hear you tell them you were born on a train” what begins with a sough and ends with a groan groan in which the tongue’s true color is revealed the comb’s sough and the denim’s undeniable rub the chair’s stripped back and muddied rung color of stone soup and garden gloves color of meal and treacle and sphagnum hangers clinging to their coat a soft-white bulb to its string the footprints inside us iterate the footprints outside the scratched words return to their sleeves the dresses of monday through friday swallow the long hips of weekends a face is studied like a key for the mystery of what it once opened “I didn’t mean to wake you angel brains” ink of eyes and veins and phonemes the ink completes the feeling a mirror silently facing a door door with no lock no lock the room he brings into you the room befalls you like the fir trees he trues her she nears him like the firs 388 | Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century if one vanishes one stays if one stays the other will or will not vanish otherwise my beautiful green fly otherwise not a leaf stirs Privacy The animals are leaving the safety of the trees Light sensors respond to the footfall of every guest To retard the growth of algae The fishes must be moved from the window Stiller than water she lies as in a glass dress As if all life might come to its end within the radius of her bed Beyond the reef of trees a beach cannot be seen the bay itself barely breathing In the other wing of the house a small boat awaits elucidation ...