The Yellow Thing
       

She moves through her
            own shadow like a creature
      no one has ever seen

—say an antelope. She is etched
            in my mind, always with
      her eventual diminishment

hiding in the tall grass—in no
            way lessening the beauty of
      her right now—lit

by sunlight of a different
            hemisphere than it is
      profitable to inhabit.

She is remarkable because of
            the time I've spent
      pondering her carotid. Un-

aware of the doom
            she skirts by swinging from
      mood to mood as if

on a trapeze—she doesn't—
            but I think about that.
      I think about

an antelope on a trapeze.
            Is ignorance of her condition
      the largest part

of a woman's
            charm? Such a comely
      brand of escapism. But also—

by not being cognizant
            of her own distress—she becomes
      a prompt to feel. And suddenly

feeling—I have the story
            which might've been her
      own, if only she

were capable
            of trajectory. Broadcast
      to enough strangers

she may return to her-
            self altered
      —telephone—and be

alerted, if obliquely, to
            her inevitable denouement.
      Although it is unlikely she will

thank me, someone
            of a disinterested nature must
      record the beauty

of this world, must affix it
            to the page. Beauty makes
      the most of itself as it

edges nakedly against
            extinction. As I've
      the tools to illustrate.

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Copyright © 2014 Kirsten Kaschock All rights reserved
from Salt Hill
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission