The Set-Aside That Becomes the Swept-Aside, and: The Whitest White in the Black & White Movie
Rent from DeepDyve- The Set-Aside That Becomes the Swept-Aside, and: The Whitest White in the Black & White Movie
The Set-Aside That Becomes the Swept-Aside
From the river that passes through the forest we were passed ashore. A door opened into a hut, and oh, there again, the lingo of smile and nod.
We set aside our packs and entered. Brief days of corn hung from rafters. White wine from a jaded sun. My not knowing your mind, nor you mine slipped off the scale of consequence.
We spoke first with sticks in the dirt. Now you wave from the meadow, old man. I bow. How kindly, in those [End Page 50]
first crude sentences, had we greeted each other as Thee and Thou.
The Whitest White in the Black & White Movie
The murders, the heists, the rapidly heaving breasts reel up behind me.
An actor I’ve casually loved for an hour opens one eye
and I stare into the moment that’s a stand-in for a lifetime.
With what sweet abandon he’s leaving himself
even as I reenter at point-blank range
the tundra terrain of the body. [End Page 51]
Nance Van Winckel’s sixth book of poems, Pacific Walkers (U of Wash-ington P), is forthcoming. Her fourth book of linked stories, Boneland, is also forthcoming.
