In Accelerated Silence by Brooke Matson (best ereader manga TXT) 📕

climbed with his wife behind me

Where?

he demands There I say and point

but already it’s mist

THERE IS A ROOM IN THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM

where candlelight warms our winter bed

and moon-white hips trace ellipses

around the sun of your skin.

There is a kitchen embedded

in the fibers of time

where your chest trembles

under my hands as a soup pot rattles

on the stove. In the dark

theatre of space, amateur actors

unravel Shakespeare, and as the lights

go down I lean

into your lips as shadows lean

into walls. An entryway exists

where your index finger traces

the boundary of my jaw as I slide

into sleep, as if to unlatch

its gate and enter. Enter

an entire hall—longer than a light-year—

where our knees touch

under tables

and the clinking of glasses glitters

like newly born stars. The corner booth

of our first shared smile

waits heavy with wine, bold as a planet

charting its arc. The entire house

is ours—it is always ours.

IV

ELEGY IN THE FORM OF PORCELAIN

winter is a prism in reverse / colors

reassembling into white

snow that illumines

the morning / kisses the dark

needles of pine / the season

before his death / it crusted the patio

like porcelain from plates I split

against it

months later in my rage / all the delicate

flowers arranged in jagged blue

and alabaster triangles / a kaleidoscope

of edges / fine powder

lost between them / the drifting debris

of dead stars / what I mean is

I loved the brushstrokes

at the corners of his eyes / little hairline

fissures / I mean

we are more than our breaks / what cannot

be reconstructed from the bang

or the plate before / spinning like a galaxy

across the porch

SONNET IN THE HIGGS FIELD

I force my heft against an unseen fence

every morning just to climb out of bed

Each limb lead-heavy as if fighting tar

a drag that scientists call mass and I

call massive depression A relentless

resistance as when skiing on the lake

the raft flipped and I did not release the

rope but clutched it harder felt my bones moan

against the force of water a translucent

field of green where trout parted like rays

of light against my ribs and snagged the cold

space of silence When at last I let go

I became weightless afraid a buoyant

breathless particle nameless on the waves

ODE TO A FRACTURED CONCH

You could have been home

to a hermit crab

when I spied you in the sand

imagining you whole—

inspiration for a poem

about fractals

I dreamt the night before

of Mandelbrot’s prime numbers

repeated

in a man’s curls

each of which represented a proportion

of the universe

telescoping upon

its verb

a golden chorus played over

and over

You breathe

water in my hand

throat

cracked through

salt and empty rooms

No evidence of the voice

I was taught to listen to as a child

Can you hear it

my sister insisted

pressing the cool

lip to my ear until I was sure

I could

I believed it was that easy

to commune with the dead

our songs

wound within us like a spool

of string from which

one could reconstruct

the chorus of our origin

But the silence segmented

in the stairwell

sentence of your body

is somehow

expected

as when walking among the infinite

arms of ferns

later this afternoon

I will find a dead house finch

its breast peeled

back like a husk of corn

ELEGY IN THE FORM OF STEAM

The teakettle quiets before it whistles

and in that breath I recall

the way your hands did simple tasks

with great intention: crushing garlic

with the thick ball of your palm,

stirring soup like it could be injured.

Making the bed, you took your time

smoothing the crease of the top sheet

like soil over newly planted seeds.

The weight of your hand at rest

comforted the silver handle

as you waited for a shrill scream

to cloud the air, a confirmation

of what was real. I grasp

its slender shoulder, lift its body

from the burner. My contents

falter as its cry

falls cold.

METAMORPHOSIS

i. Cocoon

Your mother smoothed the paper

of your face when she believed you were asleep,

wandered into hospital corners to tuck

her tears between glossy magazines.

And now spring licks this side of the earth

and all the rooted, leaf-winged creatures

remember their past lives in the sun.

Green beaks thrust through loam, yawn

for light and dew. You begged me

not to watch your skeleton emerge

from your skin, having witnessed

your father’s metamorphosis

at only seventeen. But see

how the soil writhes:

a menagerie of vibrant plumes, supple stalks

splitting into peonies.

See how the cells of your brain become

clouds of cottonwood seed

adrift in the humid heat.

ii. Luna

More animal than insect. More mouse

than moth.

Abdomen long as a robin. Wings

ragged as tissue paper.

It crawled through the cedar shards

of the flowerbed under the amber porch light.

A few steps, double-back,

and it was gone.

I was twelve and breasts

budded under my shirt.

I lay awake.

Under the blinds

the sky beat with the color of sinew,

the glistening shade of lip

and tongue, the shiny intestines of the starling

our cat left coiled

on the doorstep. The moon slid

higher in the frame. I knew

there were spaces inside us

that ache toward light.

iii. Lacuna

When people ask, How are you?

my mouth fills with flannel.

How are you doing?

they ask, and I touch the fragile arm

of the sugar bowl

or rather, the hollow

inside its porcelain elbow

where your finger nested

in half-formed thought.

The teakettle howls silver

like a wounded fox

and sometimes I let it howl

until the cat hides under the armchair

because that’s when your hand

would relieve it. I wash the rubbered skin

of a bell pepper, cut away the spire

of seeds that scatter

in the sink, hollow its reddened ribs

to a carcass

warm enough to crawl inside.

V

HOW TO EAT A POMEGRANATE

After Sarah Koenig

Don’t think about the consequences.

Let the primal need to know

fill you with salt. You will carry its tight

belly in the pocket of your coat

for three days, embrace the weight

of the question—a ripe confession,

a reticent guest. I know

you’d rather have a simple task—

fruit with a softened peel, puckered cheek

that yields to a dull edge.

But that’s not why you’re here.

If this is sacrifice, don’t dilute

the amplitude of the act.

One muscled blow

will sling your skin with magenta.

When you begin, an absence

will open at the back of your throat

the way an astronaut entering space feels the floor

fall away. Don’t hesitate.

Use your hands

to scrape the seeds like answers

to your tongue. You will lap

jelly from your palms, bend your fingernails

backward with asking. Do not be ashamed

of the bold carpet stain—

red, relentless proof.

ELEGY IN THE FORM OF A BUTTERFLY BUSH

I pared the boughs back every few months

to keep the twigs from scraping shingles

on the southern side of the shed. Hummingbirds

would make their spry appearances, flit

through sprigs of lilac, vanish

when the