Accounted For

“What Shoulder, What Art?”

50 “What Shoulder, What Art?” —after Blake The woman who wears plum gloss refuses love’s disguise: the sun intensifies, burns the hair above her lip as if an angel has drunk a bottle of Everclear, 190 proof inside her. Silver cranes swing from her ears. She talks more and more about desire, her hunger like red stakes, a long spasm of tongues invading even her sleep. Walking farther along the river, into the Anubis-shade of a salt cedar, dry needles begin to drop. She suspects the old god who weighs the heart is running the tips of his fingers over her shoulder. She swallows hard when she gets to the part “there’s no one wiser left to guide us.” There is this face-to-face living every day, thoughts sequined, a battalion of mirrors shielding now her wish for someone who won’t be claimed, and is himself possessed. Each of them keeps one eye on a star, or an arrangement of stars, Vulpecula or Grus, the art against the smallness of their hands, clasping. She drives unlicensed down the highway, wears “the nostrils of air,” a new mind—incensed, brilliant, chewing up the tar and every last bit of a right rear tire. ...