My most recent poem

I. It could be any morning

You are a faraway speed.
It could be any morning.

Springtime details
are falling by the wayside. If practiced

with water, the breathing becomes easier.
Keep something cold nearby,

like a lemon. Articles
have piled up; it must be a convenient place

to store them. He doesn’t know how right he is
about the fingernails. They are the most

important detail. The colors are conditional, especially
the blue. Chocolate lipsmack of the cleanest

child. Among the rows, pendulums.
Along the rowboats, a placenta. In the past,

she has wondered out loud
about his orientation. To the junipers

it remains a mystery. Under layers of fat,
she found what used to be her smile. You are to me

what a prism is to a ray of light, but you are not
a ray of light. Rocks, feathers in the silence.

Hover like a magpie, paper
airplane. The day will wait because

you are holding begonias. Quickly,
quickly. Nothing to spare.

II. Tailspin

Controlled snow.
The belief in sound.
Maybe to want

or stomp or predicate.
Then you bow
for hero. Follow

ground. Circle falling in a tailspin.
Think and purple.
Think of sky and tearing open.

In warm clay
streets hold
sky in.

But we do not face ourselves
rising. Face the asking dance.
Know how time meets

eye, electric field
of your body.

III. Provisional Rapture

At the threshold.
On the hearth.
Within the landscape
of the fireplace. She remembers

him like a spicy gumdrop
on her tongue. Piqued.
The extraordinary day
began with an announcement. Acting

as if the fire is contained,
we continue to pickle
the rhubarb. May I? May I please?
We do believe in love.

The guitar is a basin
holding his hope
and harmonica. Together
they sound like relish,

green and a-gleam. Feel the bundle of fire
in your brainstem.
It is contained. Or you think
it should be. You keep it there,

safely, like a packed parachute.
We want, more than anything,
to make jelly. She
points out the obvious fact

that he lies often.
It doesn’t help
that he promised
her photographs

of the naked daffodil, dripping
with nectar. It may be the
simple way you abdicate
your sentences,

creating an unparallel warmth,
that gives the illusion
of having purple eyes.
An open gleam. Or eggplant.

I can’t believe
you are still waiting. I cannot forget
the bat entrails
in the water fountain,

their purple gloss
dancing in the stream. It is you.
She admits that the truth
involves a skeleton key.

Imagine the possibilities. Or her goose bumps,
rising to the sound of his name.
Herein lies your own
illusion of pudding. If that doesn’t

do it for you.

(Copyright, Mackenzie Carignan 2005)