by Midori Snyder
We know when the time is perfect:
when the song of houses lifts
across streets hard with leather in the night,
and every salted breath as delicious.
The skin of the stone, nameless but for sound,
is is pulled by my predator, the tide.
Poems are signs to the elements,
reminding me of my wet hearttubes
and the stones of their belling names,
each one pulled across their neighbour,
stroking elbows and submerged knees;
constellations
that spread skyward, and toeward.
Years separate us.
The minute hand is no friend of ours.
She comes and goes, and suffers
like righteous men, from constipation
of the soul.
I wander aimless mouthing
many things silently
interrogating the water–beads.
I dig myself a hole like a well
and it is my coffin.
I try to ignore the sun.
I plead with the elements to stop for a moment
so I can catch up.
I listen for the sound of my own voice
from ceilings turned upside–down.
I make plans in my head about the water
being useless
and songless
and dry
when all that is needed is a sown breath,
arms slack to the pull,
each stone, held in stone
hope, quiet and shadow.
to be Apollo’s temple at Delphi.