Wilder. Claire Wahmanholm

its white teeth down.

      When it is a tent, we slit its skin to let in the rain.

      When it is not there at all, we rank the shades of nothing according to their hue:

      alice blue

      iris blue

       a blue of such majesty it can’t be looked at

      pale blue

       a vast and uniform heaven

      ultramarine

      falling through the ocean

      falling asleep

       this eve of blackness

       neat, delicate, deep black

       the black dilated iris

      panic

       the long black trail

       absolutely black and appalling

      When the sky is not there at all, we pound stakes through our shoes

      to keep us close to the ground.

      We tarp our windows so we are not tempted

      to smash the glass and let the aftersky suck us outward

      like marrow from the bones of our houses.

      Black at noon, black in the afternoon.

      Black hail falls from somewhere and melts invisibly in the yard.

      The grass fattens with alien dew.

the dark

      is everywhere

      is

      a confusion . We

      are

      profoundly

      lonely a reed

      In the

      Sea

      THE MEADOW, THE RIVER

      The meadow unfolded before me,

      a soft, uncrossable rot.

      I tore myself in two along my spine and sent half of me

      into the night to see if I would make it through.

      I waited at the meadow’s black mouth.

      What news? I practiced asking the grass,

      the shadows of black-eyed Susans, my boots.

      The gone edge of me felt clean against the wind’s hand.

      The gone edge of me felt bright and hot.

      It was hard to see in the dark with just one eye

      but I thought I could see the other half of me

      moving slowly across the meadow.

      Was I waving, or was that just the wind in my hair?

      Was I calling, or did the wind just bend itself across my ear?

      I put my foot down and felt the grass rise around it

      like a river. Like the way a lover might rise

      from the cold bed of one and pull you under.

      I couldn’t see anything across the meadow.

      I couldn’t blink the blackness from my eyes.

      In fact there was no meadow.

      In fact the river had washed away the grass, the black-eyed Susans,

      my leg below the knee.

      I had sent half of me into that water, and now the gone edge

      fevered for its brother.

      My leg untethered itself, then my shoulder, my lung.

      Was it wind or water that rushed over my tongue?

we

      had

      a taste for

      error

      and

      frail boats

      o ye

      brave sailors in

      an

      unexplored

      sky.

      we

      strayed from home

      and

      failed utterly

      on

      the shores of space

      THE MEADOW, THE LAKE

      The meadow is a lake.

      The lake is 400 degrees.

      The meadow smells like steam,

      tastes like heat, feels like ash beneath our feet.

      Its wind rings a brass bell in our ears.

      On Mars are meadows of magnesium soil

      that slope slowly upward until they reach the highest point

      in the solar system.

      This meadow is not a lake, but an ocean.

      Birds fly across it for so long they fall

      like ripe fruit onto its face.

      Their smallness puts large holes in

      the sails of our breath,