Golden City, Missouri
In the year of screens they were scooped
and silt. They were scooped and starlit silt
Who are you, sayer
Who still the night and its wander
I have gotten far from the grass
I have bitten the rare night
How it shocked of mint
What speak into the violet rasp in the night fruit
They drove a long time on the gravel
On the gravel road they drove a long time
This is this silt’s opposite
What do you know of silt
Knees in the dirt in the yard
I want wine. Wine I want your late citrus
Staring long they emptied their minds
Night ages in the sear-light
Where and from heat did you speak
And what is the point
And what grew and sometimes sang
In the windows
Nowhere reached its train-tracks toward the scraped beach
And we washed our hands
Scratches at Empty: A Woman
wander her
boredom, some evening:
late-stretching afternoon of an evening:
night withholding
its violet rasp:
night-withholding. who cares.
she is full of cupboards to lock
and unlock, the key made of gilded sugar or ash.
she leaves the key on her own tongue,
she slips through the rooms
fiddling the dials of radios
so the chambers fill with voices
serious: their eyes
hold attentions
that puzzle and bronze
I do not like to climb into my brain
I don’t like its fever or other
I am outraged at this waste of feeling,
green-gold orchestra
of the backroads
insects, sting of our spit in our eyes
did you trip over yourself
and who can make haste in the yawn before night
haste does just this much: the battering walls
wait no longer than a bent song of nowhere
weren’t bent at nowhere anymore
Shamala Gallagher is a lyric essayist/poet with recent work in or soon to be in Black Warrior Review, The Missouri Review, The Offing, and West Branch and a chapbook out from dancing girl press. She's received fellowships from Kundiman, the Michener Center for Writers, and VCCA, and she lives in Athens, GA.