Blue Hour Press 2009
B lue Hour Press 1 7 0 9 8 th St. Tu s c aloosa, AL 3 5 4 0 1 www.bluehourpress.com editor@bluehourrpress.com Thanks to the editors of Diode, where portions of this poem first appeared. Š 2009 Brooklyn Copeland. All rights reserved.
This foolish picture of a man A crazy way to use water His custom to go away on a bus
l au r a m o r i a rt y
(and some in fear went twice as far in half the time) blossoms in a pop
And at gunpoint
of anti-climatic blush and scent— boutonniere Hurried lovers necking on a bed of spent magnolias.
(so young there— my beau in his cheap chapeau)
Then cartwheeling in cameo— limestone all over limestone making walls making our schools in spring dogwoods shelve shyly seasonable beneath in spring horehound candies in summer muskmelons melonpops popsicles and sucking on flavorstained wood if I dare you, Lover, to eat these sumac berries would you to prove prove prove indeed he remarks one cannot improve much upon a gambrel roof.
A bee’s waiting until you’re not. He says first let’s agree then let’s forget. He says who bets on imminence runs on blame. Bee don’t sting me I don’t steal fame only money grubbing blamed up on Bunratty Potcheen.
And hungermaking kerosene burning bright burning clean. Our sole house heat. Did you bring your wires for the bonfire? on our street did you bring your wives?
Marshmallow licorice rag growing wild. The smells I remember from running my miles. In the day the hummingbirds you’ll find have red throats. Gray wings. No eyes.
You offered. You kept offering till your thumbs went through the shell. Was it nerves? My thighs drove you.
Shallowly we breathe, eventually the same breath.
One ant hesitates. I stroke your wrist and wait some. That sex solves nothing is a lie jealous adults tell.
Rings possess fingers. Fingers remember what the eyes have blocked. The blindness in this case is figurative. The figure in this case is curvaceous.
Cheap metals green my finger. Hair and greenwood twined—a temporary ring till money comes in and marrying’s good as in, in the stars, which are all cheap and green too.
Milled, folded, soldered. Inlaid omen. Mokume gane. Ifs as hinges. Ands as pins. Rings as reunions.
Aim horizon. Takes budget or talk of. Violets sleep in tangled limp tendrils. A wristlet. A remnant. Wet. Pubic. Wake up together waiting on an old coffeemaker. No heavy talk of till then. Dunes made glacial drip upon drip. Talk, the horizon shifts— aim higher, not straighter. We may arrive on time.
In some remote pre-dawn eye slit the horizon largely the same the cinquefoils still chirpy and obliging the ox-eyed daisies and the daisies fleabane and the worts and weeds the thistles and yarrows still healing and exotic in their ways— Weeds bind. Tongues beard. Thimbles berry. Balms bee. Flags blue.
Rain clarifies colors— colors reveal the brief ambition of these provincial weeds. In gullies, mosses soft, mosses bright as dyed suede feel rich beneath scrubbed feet. Rain—nature’s iteration— light paradiddles on the surface of the creek. How free-making this word before a judge!
(penniless)
Then a little too bright a little too brittle— low growing turks among dead tufts. Dandelions demand nothing need only. On a slow night later awaken
to soft silver to blow.
Lover, they favorite ravine filled and dammed the baby creek. They covered bridge restored and roped and this word Pedestrians—just that. Not us. They moss scraped and grass greened up and stonehauled what might’ve thrown. They paved through then laid chips they arrange to seem unplanned they happen so perfectly nature here— so they want us to think.
(one ant hesitates then the other) (we’re virgins till whichever comes first) You—live happily ever me —live happily after.
(dreamstream steamscene) the sun is bright for February (paired rivulets christie glass)
Scruples— choker of pearls— when the strand breaks pearls scatter. Bouncing, not rolling— fake.
Prior hundredyears. Prior weeds shot tall fast. Prior common as in everyday— Prior genetic make-ups meant prior types of people laying prior frameworks. Prior to and out of respect I miss them and suspect we share some weedy strain—
not common as in plain.
Prior to the frangipani and phlox withering yet uncrushed near the on-ramp I still preferred the wildflowers. The wildflowers that grew in crumbly sprays, that blossomed green and unflowerlike— filler, some sisters would say. Rustic, as if rustic’s a crime. As if quaint.
Prior to the events that shaped there were events that went along merrily. Prior to those events my love lived beside gravity. I loved lowlier than anyone.
Woke up empty-handed,
having loved lonelier than no one could humanly, less human each time you forgot me.
My cardinal hearted! My peony shredded at the top of the bog. My twisty tie ring in the sewer oubliette. And teaching you more Arkansauce, less OurKansas. My nesting doll chipped tooth. The lilacs neckhigh. That scent particular to bathing richly and babymaking.
Our gossip went in glances. Symbols embarrassed us. We read manifestos. We drank tiny wines. Our guilt got us drunk. We decided nothing was miraculous that would’ve happened without us bearing witness—
if a tree falls in a forest— that sort of thing all goddamned spring.
works and plays and hides her face somewhere between Indianapolis and a cornfield. b r o o k ly n c o p e l a n d
The book was designed by Justin Runge for Blue Hour Press, printed digitally and distributed online. The typeface used is Perpetua, designed by British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker Eric Gill.