Poesten Kill 2

A current pushes through the studio

displacing many pinned papers (sketches, 

a few poems). The gallery was like this once, 

all potential. I remember Lucia’s game, 

I’d have to guess the words she’d hum into 

her empty apple juice bottle. “Leaf “ or “Crayon.”

I shake the handle of many locked doors looking

for surfaces to carve on—resolved to cut

the paper into thin strips. It leaves marks 

on the worktable, many intersecting lines.

I’ve been developing a series of casts 

of the bottles dug from the yard, varied in form 

and hue. I paste paper segments to the glass 

(establishing layers, reinforcing corners).

The brush deposits traces: streak

of ink, long strand of hair. A shrouded 

bottle gives the impression of a unified 

thing, paper clinging to the word “tonic.” I must 

score down from throat to base to wrench the halves 

apart                       recalling a process 

other than construction or design. 

I position the pale doubles on rods of lead

reaching out from the huddled bottles, defining 

the space between: irreconcilable, 

necessary. Some bend or break in the room’s heat.

My smallest one sways back and forth, stilling

for a moment before rocking again. 

I brush them with a little adhesive, so sweet, 

my fragile objects, sleeping in a pile. 

In the corridor I pause and turn around, 

noiselessly crack the door ajar to confirm 

that Small Cylindrical is still breathing.