by Daniel Evans Pritchard
NORTH OF NO DESTINATION
WE DROVE NORTH on Route 2,
where the elbow’s cheek of sumac
seemed to blush with phlox;
where privet and spurge
singed the blasted rocks,
which were tagged with
a single pair of names repeating
Love for miles. It’s hard to see
the boneyard of aspen and birch
this vivid green and yellow blur
will soon become; the tanning pines
a season too old, or too young,
are sure to split in the first
real storm. But the trees don’t know
this is their season to burn.
Hours and hours of light are left
when we reach the border with
Vermont and stop for gas. Already
thinking about the next stop,
and the next, she’s tapping her thick
heel at the pump and watching
the numbers wheel up and up.
Already, winter is on our minds,
as much a bearing as a season.
BICORNUATE
Home a lamb of wooden bones
a lambkin at night
dark with glass eyes
shuttered and the hidden
throat of the
crawlspace hissing.
She sweats in the heat
her pink chemise
almost luminescent
catching
the blink of the television
as he his
mind full of tripwires
circles end
to windowed end
of their house because of the rain
because
it is August already
and mornings now
the cottonwood
sags with talents of dew
Warm white smoke
stains the light
around her face
and settles at her waist
She sighs, flicks away
a stem of ash
He haunts the room down the hall
where the half-built crib
juts like a pier
its half-made complexity
deserted
He like a swimmer
extends his hand
expecting to feel
a strange slick body
in the black
It’s nearly impossible
to figure their distance
standing at
opposite shores
How much that pier
grew between them
They become circles around each other
too soon to want this much
an invisible structure
too soon the little heart in its
matchbox cage
had stopped
DANIEL EVANS PRITCHARD is a poet, essayist, and translator as well as the founding editor of The Critical Flame, an online journal of criticism, creative nonfiction, and interviews. His writing can be found inHarvard Review online, Public Pool, Drunken Boat, Prodigal, The Quarterly Conversation, Rain Taxi, The Buenos Aires Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Greater Boston and tweets about literature and politics at @pritchard33.