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Arthur Dove, 1931 I have spent all day with the silver disc of the barn owl’s face embedded in my thoughts & my beloved under general anesthetic, his whole form etherized, calcite laddering his spine, strange thorns in the distinct cave of him. I wring my hands, silly spinsterish fret-motion, I say shoo but still…

There have been many— Who called in the ships— Ships in off the dark water. Instinct one minute— Satire the next—. There have been many. From one vision to the next— It is a long distance. Not just anyone can go there. You have to carry a moth through rain. You have to feign lightning….

Two bow hunters were heading out of the woods after another day without bringing back a deer, when, at a puddle in a logging road rut, tangled in some branches above it, dangling down, they spied one of those red and white fishing bobbers. “What the hell?” the first bow hunter said, but concerned that…

If this were the sea and not snow, morning- cold, Ohio, the slick, black trees standing for themselves along our ice creek, then these birds might seem ready for the flight. They’ve opened their massive wings, five, six feet across, and hold them to the cold sun as though cutting through salt winds unfettered. This…

xii. It was late May when I began the journal, a record of descents, tours of the abyss, & catalogues of blackness. One morning, I woke having dreamt I was the vehicle of aliens—no joke!—a stiff robotic self Impeccably designed to go out into our world & hunt other people. My alien Engineers had expected…

it was unusual to see children here, someone other       than a woman in a housecoat    (though it was afternoon it was after three)       or a retired officer of some sort at the apartmentsthat looked like a strip mall one was gladto have the boy and girlriding their bicycles       up and down the…

On the shore, the moon breaks on the rocks, gathering and    shattering itself. The man admits surprise, how easily the point enters the heart. You have only the one day, it’s a birthday. You can smile, I am, he did. He buried iron pots and the cast-iron pan, he washed them, covered their surfaces…

no there is nothing today I want to read I want to gather you like the sky at sixteen I was a real beauty nudged to excellent ways of comforting I was told Radha he grows weak your silhouette and eyes the sculpture Tikkuman chisels forever too busy to take a wife and Radha they…