Poem Beside Itself

Where in the capsized animal
am I. Came to to find me
having at a padlock with
a hammer. You there. There in
the ash there. Screwed to the past
like a kiss. You've never had
to kill me. You have nowhere
but the air. The birds are so
clearly not birds, but they've been
everywhere. Their eyes were here,
always. And time. Cut to ground.
Cue tremors. Cue the mammals
and vowels. Cue the landscape
brandishing itself with lazy malice.
Cue a usual night with planets
burning out at one another.
Cue toys in their aisles—I said
cue tremors!—and queer
every relevant dream.
Sky again. A flower or
a cloud exactly like it.
Either clean of any idea.
The by-heart bags of static in
this body are collapsing.
The carved little mind I've been
thinking around in, thinking
around with is flashing, not
with plastic or with shadow
or with damaging winds or laughter
but with plans—I plan at you.
I play unsanitary.
I point and I pull at your eyes.
I say "Duck duck chain" and I
say "Chain chain goose" and should you
feel a person tearing at
your hands, delay the why. Tongues
for which the crowd slows: Shed 'em.
What is what is made of sleep from.
Dumb as light, polite and wealth-
mouthing, I pose with my bones.
You've never had to kill me.
What takes place in sleep stays there.
These words are so clearly not
birds—they'll never be anywhere.
Show me how God has a mouth.
Keep talking while I tend
to the lines on your face. Keep
talking while I touch your face
and keep talking through your face
and throw your face through your face.

Copyright © 2007 Graham Foust All rights reserved
from Colorado Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission