ALLY HARRIS

 

 

                                     



EYE OF THE STAR

 

 

Choose the red kernel beside your friend
            who also chooses red, makes you piqued
at red & nimble-picked with printed finger
            red from plastic bears the bright
wavering over the further city, placenta-
            reflected mauve assailing curtain.
In its own passing from movement to stillness
            under a foreign star the rock’s intrinsic
brightness laxes under the brush & only
            tense courses through the ligament.
Your father braves a mess of height
            under tiny yellow flowers that caress
the mountain envious—dear shock of your stern
            mother we ascended once in silence
as your father fingered the stone he found in a bush
            while urinating. I walked out toward
a taciturn-bright expanse, a dizzy grey, a dull
            dull, a bears-silence water silence
for its parent grey, the pacific shallow
            paleness back to brain of little
aesthetic love refaxed to callus at the fuzz-
            shifted sheen, thick veins on the trail-
strong instant. It flay banded there & pasted on
            for definition as we three oared air’s
wry boon, eschewed a lie, cape low & complaint
            roiled whimsy as white tennis shoes
marred by Oregon mud. Epithet: rime.
            Rotary rains within such spaces anchored
like a liquidated cheese, spectral. I think
            of winter, of its cool evening swathed
in constellation, star calculation, limb darkening
            current of debris, dust banded round
a galaxy, perhaps body? As I stitch together
            passable leather under dim luminosity
the salted buzz of sun decreased in kernels.
            I thought that space to be cold
skull on lash, leaden, I thought hammer
            and cephalopod, matter of knee
density cancelled, said so. Whipped-on
            trash heaps there but nothing
but nothing, red-cheeked, I witnessed
            invention burbling. Maul, I thought
laughter, our little stabilization.
            Nothing, northering. An entity cut, no inside
to dissect or penetrate, just two worms
            trachea-splayed on the trail, weakening
everyone cancered, I said, Anna
            Why don’t you answer me? In death
I fear the loss of knowledge
            but I suffused the mesh life gave and gained
more loss, that’s the secret.

 

                                                                                                      

 

      

 

                                   

 

 


TYPO 20