Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collections keep (forthcoming from Dusie Press), the last will be stone, too (Stockport Flats), Elements (Stockport Flats), and Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords), as well as a novella in verse, Hélène (Furniture Press). ---------
Paris
sometimes a mask no matter how gold pants through pointed nose
bandage spreads by way of skin and forearm
no needle but heroin, and eligible confession
the secreted walls of late-night eighteenth, budget, jamais vu
the way memories reside between now and letter after
belied belonging by way of slang
Jardin pleasantries, punk, crush of gravel, a slight rain
outside the addictions, the freckles
combat jacket, chest swells, iced paroquet; boot prints on the bistro floor
Bellingham (The Butch Sunrise Mix)
often a lady, no matter how vicarious the rumors, dangles at rooftop drunken
tongue explores by way of robe cord and late night
no holds [bar] tricks between
waterstance and shell
letters language the conduit
abandoned truck and everything girl—untu(r)ned—
come morning just the view
the bay a mannequin running shoes draped on a wire
[the pulling in]
the pulling in
the taking off
sounds of a train station
it could rain could stretch the track across
a thousand bodies
all this time to fly from paris to paris?
no, the people mutter,
toulouse,
toulouse,
never been to toulouse
you hold a nest or livingorganism with
small thick tunnels
small thick tunnels
out of which one bird squirms
then another more easily flies free
[in laughing class]
“in laughing class you have to pull it from within” he says handing you a broken sonnet with a light. “all the world’s a stage,” you say, sipping coffee. “laughing is contagious,” you add. and the death goat marched proudly on.