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  • Drawers Chests and Wardrobes
  • James Bradley Wells (bio)

Second-story window drains cello chords down.On the windowsill the feline’s oilyeyelids bask in racks of sunlight. Glory,that appetite to collect such polished stones,to stash them in a chest of drawers, to collectcicada exoskeletons, steepled deer antlers,papery skin of king snake molted midsummer,black widow lanterns, flickering ear hairs of foxes.America is not the sort of countrywhere muslin, batiste become well lavenderedover winter. The wardrobe does not stand sentryfor daydreamers sitting inside. No American wardrobestores moon’s shine, but glory for grappled things:ejected undergarments on the lawn,how the Orthodox priest intones Attend,droves of knucklebones and protruding tree roots,eczematous lesions of lead paint. Life begins well.Spent hope staggers more than a newborn foal.One becomes attuned to how anotherfills a closet. Fickle disintegrationof papyrus rolls in mind’s archives. Carnationbouquets in a plastic bucket beside the roadpreach the avarice of rose. Blood weepingfrom carcass onto the butcher’s block. Do weno longer know what it means to work onlyfor the sake of glory? I do not want a weakeningsense of loss for moments of beholding.I have turned away when dipteral awedrove home its dreadful point, but like bee bodiesworking in their hive mirror rhizomessquirming in the soil, I should be readyto travel to a foreign land to witnessthe marvelous green of Seriphos quartz, readyto attend cello ribcage grappled by growling legs,shoulder sinews delivering it—cello’s flanks flushedwith a muscled adagio that ghosts through an openwindow, gusts of limbs and melody limber. [End Page 55]

James Bradley Wells

James Bradley Wells is the author of the poetry collection Bicycle (Sheep Meadow Press, 2013) and the chapbook The Kazantzakis Guide to Greece (Finishing Line Press, 2015). He is an Associate Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University and lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

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