the fire of the underworld
seen through a slit between two stones.
AFTER two days I was luminous and half-naked
under the crow, the sky
was his company and he was mine, tied
to the air as I was to this earth, bitter, enraged, I drowned
my legs in water I could not reach, my mouth
is dry but the crow loves me, this morning, his shriek has authority.
THE ANIMALS were slowly digging in the mud, and were frightened.
Laughter was the refuge of the weather, and hunger
sounded like water that had nowhere to drain. More water
was found under the mud, digging.
WE CAME across a hunter disguised as a bird.
The towns pay these lords for protection. This is revealed
in a parable the women tell. They speak of a rose
that grew in the desert from a drop of blood.
THE DANCING GIRL has veiled her body
in movement. Drums grunt like voices
calling for water in the sun.
Dripping onto the hot skin of a drum
droplets would also dance
until they soaked up the sound.
THIS SLIM BODY of yours
is covered in feathers,
as if someone intended to hunt you.
Under this sun
you cannot be comfortable. Girl of high birth
let me make bedding
of your clothes. I have nothing to sleep on
and no other excuse
to offer you.
A TEAR was painted on your cheek
without ceremony. It looks like a mountain falling
down your face, and was meant to weigh as much
in your heart. Yet there is no sadness in you
as you sit beside me,
and place another log in the fire.
AT the bottom of the pond in your heart
there is no silt
to stir. Your eyes, wide and clear,
are made of ocean.
IF I CAN deceive this girl then let me
forge mountains
hard enough to echo the words they’re made of.
Let me blink, and undo myself for long enough
to notice I am gone.
YOU TELL ME I have pine needles for bedding
and expect me to go home. Sweet girl,
if your pillow were the moving water of a creek
I would lie down beside you and ask the fish
to only nibble at our hair
until the water cooled our dreams.
THEY DO NOT want to be noticed
among so many burning things.
Their kiss,
as quiet as the sound left by an ink brush
moistened by water,
recording nothing.
A RIVER has gotten away from you. Pools
are forming at your feet. Now night
opens you.
ONLY THIS MUCH do I know:
When he came to me I was naked,
though I waited for him dressed.
As if the clothes themselves
were afraid of him. All the strings of my undergarments,
and even my belt:
snakes sliding down
from a tree.
ON YOUR body I left behind
the fading moisture of a kiss.
Weightless as a sewing needle
resting on your skin.
You don’t want to move
because it will roll off of you.
WHY HAVE my friends spoken of him
as if he were a spider, and my love
the silk of his web? Every word he speaks
weighs so much in my ear, how could he have anything left in him
to make silk?
YOUR thin body, encased in my warmth
like a wick in a flame
feeding my light
consumes you.
BROTHER,
ever since your promise that one day
you would return to marry her,
her thin body has grown thinner
under her glowing skin,
like a shipwreck trapped in the closed bulb of a new flower.
The spine of its keel is almost bulging
through the petal.
When are you coming?
WHAT IS this belt made of, that clasps your dress to your waist?
Could a bird not carry it away, easily? And your shoulders,
on which this dress hangs—are they wide enough to hold it
if you shrug?
ARE YOU the same girl who sheltered the sun in her hair
when the night made no room for it? You walked around
all night, in the kitchen, trying not to wake anyone—trying
to cover your head with your arms.
WHO ARE you going to meet tonight
in the tall grass
where even snakes cannot find each other?
Your bare feet
will be the safest part of you.
THE RAIN kisses my face
without your permission. The sun
heats my skin, the wind
tightens it. So what do you have to say to me?
A LAMB blinking over a patch of earth
does not know what you have done. Feed it,
and it will eat from your hand
as if you wore the skin of a washed grape.
MY TIGERS have left me.
I awake too late in the day, after a heavy rain
has played its notes on my roof.
I don’t even tie them to anything.
THE MAN who grows flowers in a field
for lovers to give to one another
is not himself lonely.
He left last winter to see his brother,
and now his field is wild.
He is not kept company by the wind,
and dawn alone does not steady his heart.
All the elements in the mountain pass
do make their way into the soil,
but he sleeps at night in a bed
beside a woman, and is as dreamless as a goat.
HAIR covered a face
the way old vines conceal a door.
The iron eyes of an owl
open at me
like ornaments from a mother’s home
familiar from youth.
CLAY pots, shaped from the inside
like a sun
when the sky was spinning.
THE red earth changes color when a stream runs over it
and you have become darker since you married. Sister,
even the woven strength of youth
cannot protect you from boredom.
You used to follow close behind me
as we raced against the stream.
YOUR husband is stretched out on the ground
as if he were listening for something.
Ask him to come back to the table.
Whatever was there is now here.
THE GIRL cries from the number of fingers and toes
she cannot yet count. Sister, the terror
at this immense nudity of unknowing
will in time subside
like a sea burying a billion colored corals with its name.
BROTHER, don’t look away when she glances at you,
and stop trying to find omens in the syllables of her name.
Go up to her, and say out loud
the name of our father, and if your voice doesn’t break
she may even see something of his face
in yours.
EVEN as you look at her
across the vessel of wine
her parents will pour,
love will take time to reach her,
like light—
tracing the work of dawn
as she sleeps.
On another world
large tree ferns
descend toward
the sea
from moist valleys.
Overhead, our star,
exploding
like the radiating veins of a halved grapefruit.
AS THE village goes up
in smoke
a dry cloud is rotating overhead,
fed like a whirlpool
in the sky.
We press our hands together.
It is better to be
together in life, willingly,
than by any force.
HIS LIMBS covered in sweat, and ash;
his hair the way it was before it ever grew—
this was your husband, after the fire
that even ate water.
Do not wail, young sister,
for he wielded the buckets as if they were weapons
and fought as if the forest were no less his home
than our village.
SISTER, when you look at him
with your black-rimmed eyes,
let the sun’s rays
speak for your mouth. Light knows
what to say of him.
A SAND dune came toward us like a sailing ship
made of stone
that was breaking in the wind.
WHEN the strange rain singed the outline of a lake into the sand
we left flowers at every spot where a fish would perish.
The sand turned to glass, and white in the sun
the glass spread the sun like a chant.
I HAVE never seen improvements to the flesh. If a man should steal, let it be sugarcane
to redden his tongue like a guilty ox. And let it be the holiest light
to strike the shadows from his mouth. Speech cannot find its way out in that darkness.
And let it be rice, to sleep on. And let it be
a woman; green and white as bamboo and milk:
a smooth stone
to set upon the chest.
For I have never known improvements to the flesh.
ISLANDS are pronounced by the ocean without bubbles.
Sometimes the ocean chokes on an island
as it tries to take it back;
these are left alone.
These are left alone
to defy the heat and the birds,
and when bubbles appear around them
they harden into reefs.
Such islands the ocean can no longer pronounce.
Their names push back the language of the water: a beach.
LEAVE ME a stone
from the towering mountain
that once was still growing in the sea.
Leave me the moon
to reflect certainty
the way a child’s face reflects its mother.
And leave me your black shadow
so it can absorb
the light that claims you are gone.
AND so
I envisioned a woman stepping out of the ocean wearing every starfish at once, like armor.
I crystallized my eyes with the liquor of the seed I planted in my mouth.
I cut my destiny in two and kept the heavier one.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Jorie Graham—my mentor.
I wish to express gratitude to the editors of the following journals, in which these poems originally appeared, some in slightly different form:
CALVIN BEDIENT, Lana Turner:
“After two days I was luminous and half-naked”; “The afternoon is a fugitive”; “By the evening your hair is curled”; “The ground of the forest has become muddy in the rain”; “If I can deceive this girl then let me”; “Love”; “What is this belt made of, that clasps your dress to your waist?”
TIMOTHY DONNELLY, Boston Review:
“A tear was painted on your cheek”; “And if a bird descended on your shoulder”; “Apart from you I am as lost”; “Brother”; “Color is sleeping in some birds”; “Down the river the creatures in the basin prepare”; “The earth was fruit, and stars, and motion”; “Like the wind that gusts coastal pines toward the water”; “Thick in the forest masks are hung in rows, grinning”; “This girl’s words are as ordered”; “This slim body of yours”
BIN RAMKE, Denver Quarterly:
“A body looks like an unopened bell”; “At the bottom of the pond in your heart”; “The growing fingers of clouds meet”; “House, floating under moon”; “I have never seen improvements to the flesh. If a man should steal, let it be sugarcane”; “Islands are pronounced by the ocean without bubbles”; “On your back you sleep as if your wings were planted in the sand”; “The star has given me a body”; “The wave has come to collect the little ports on the coast”; “We came across a hunter disguised as a bird”; “When the sun is wide and drying and filled”
BRADFORD MORROW, Conjunctions:
“A glacier glows pink”; “A lamb blinking over a patch of earth”; “The animals were slowly digging in the mud, and were frightened”; “As the village goes up”; “Approach shadows like shallow water”; “A sand dune came toward us like a sailing ship”; “Between kisses the air is quiet”; “The bird is in the center of the sun”; “Birds aglow in yellow do not carry ashes”; “Brother, don’t look away when she glances at you”; “Cooking under some trees”; “The dancing girl has veiled her body”; “Daughter, along the rim of what you were knitting”; “Even your words will not leave you”; “Hair covered a face”; “I want to boast”; “Like wooden planks from a broken ship”; “The man who grows flowers in a field”; “The moon has gone farming at night”; “My tigers have left me”; “On maps the sea carries color”; “The pigment of crushed petals”; “The season is yet unlit”; “Soil guards the sleep”; “The sun began eating”; “The tree collapsed on itself”; “To the bird an island is not as bright as a star”; “What will you do with these pearls he has given you?”; “Who are you going to meet tonight”; “Why is the forest canopy strung with rope?”; “You disappear beside me in a forest. Walking”; “You curse the rain outside your window, believing”; “You hear the sun in the morning”; “Your lips are as full as a wound”
DONALD REVELL, Colorado Review:
“When the strange rain singed the outline of a lake into the sand”
A Note About the Author
Daniel Nadler was born in Canada. He is an entrepreneur and directs research at the Global Projects Center at Stanford University. A recent graduate of Harvard University, he divides his time between New York City and Los Angeles. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
You hear the sun in the morning
Your lips are as full as a wound
A body looks like an unopened bell
Your arms are as long as sand falling from a cracked fist
You are as happy as a waterwheel
My lips are shy
Ripening spots of white starlight onto our cold blue sphere
The moon has gone farming at night
The strawberry she held between her teeth
I would twist my arms like coral
I want to boast
I tugged at your laughter like a rope
A spider cannot be used as bait
The wave has come to collect the little ports on the coast
I hold your hips
Between kisses the air is quiet
Even your words will not leave you
On your back you sleep as if your wings were planted in the sand
To the bird an island is not as bright as a star
The gr
ound of the forest has become muddy in the rain
Love
This girl’s words are as ordered
The earth was fruit, and stars, and motion
You disappear beside me in a forest. Walking
Color is sleeping in some birds
What will you do with these pearls he has given you?
She undressed in the deep shadows of the garden she loved
Apart from you I am as lost
When the sun is wide and drying and filled
The season is yet unlit
A glacier glows pink
House, floating under moon
On maps the sea carries color
Birds aglow in yellow do not carry ashes
The star has given me a body
Soil guards the sleep
Thick in the forest masks are hung in rows, grinning
The sun began eating
By the evening your hair is curled
Approach shadows like shallow water
When you slipped off your dress, orders streamed from your lips
The pigment of crushed petals
I embraced you by mistake
Cooking under some trees
Like the wind that gusts coastal pines toward the water
I guarded your sleep like a young cat
Lacunae Page 2
