Opiate Shore Made to Stand Past, and: Survivalist

124 SUSAN MAXWELL OPIATE SHORE MADE TO STAND PAST the last passing of a still cloud lasting like the river reemerging over the splints of the macled pit where dogs eat a dead cow and their silhouettes serrate, one number to another. Candles flaring on the lacewings, an eye to the eye, mouth to the script. Strangers pluck a poppy this far from home and the faces wheel away when the river runs aground in the braids, tongue poured through to its tip, bottle worn off the rumor of a god paid past the last wall of the moon was another ochre city opened and stunned to the sky. 125 SURVIVALIST Put down our music, gold and black chitin. Put down the best horse. Bullet the insect of infinite rest drawing more insects. In her star and snip, in her forelock an erring righteousness, schnik schnik. That others may grow, deaf to the stars. Brainchild, dendrite, violet spreads flourishing in the igneous collapse. The library galloped. Birds have feet. An influencing machine browning mouths like hawk feathers, a few circusing down but this is a friar’s game, three nicely-formed sticks batting our optics from the inside, moonlight. Quotidian. Just a subject. Moonlight. The hammer. Evades a pulse not given it by the hammering. Gem jimmied to the surface, birds rise off spoils. Qualia. One narrow poppy. SUSAN MAXWELL ...