Non-anatomical (the extra part of the day) . . .
no origin
to a life? Can only be
necessary and incorrect?
Waiting in a group. For?
Picturing.
Picturing. I met him. I met him. Someone looked away and took my pulse.
Tasting, waiting, identifying, covering. The empty part of a handshake or of
flicking the fingers to dry them, the hand’s precedent, recognizes itself in
Daniel’s dream – keeping people alive. Daniel asked to carry wholeness forward,
into my childhood.
I didn’t want to stop speaking because there was no way to know the action
in advance. Arrived there and had to continue. Someone
had to continue.
Twice a day like Daniel yellow
petals like yellow hairs. Crossing the embankment on foot. Crossing the
embankment twice a day like Daniel. Too small. On? Too small to be a gull. I
was standing behind the orchestra, singing. A wick, a mound. Cut into strips.
Crossing on. Not enough. Large. Small,
small.
Pivot, pivoting tree, plane tree (sycamore, buttonwood).
Pulling, bending. Someone curling on moving snow,
pulling
a bright pole
out of the empty drain, hands above the head.
Asked how
long Danny and I were going to be seven. Then
I started repeating myself. How high up? How many times?
A curl, dipping and dripping. Black grate hovering in a lit window.
Exhausted. Whatever only happens to everyone and something began moving
faster, in the same direction. Cleared the raised surface. Three
of something. Three corrugated arms. Twisting the corrugated torso to look,
twisting the corrugated wrist (atmosphere) . . .
pointed
the forearm back
and up. Part of the afternoon. When I decide to
think of Daniel’s face I think of a photograph of my mother, as a child. What
did Danny say to do then?
Bending,
bending and bright waste above the head, the
fluttering cut.
I couldn’t speak. I fell asleep.
I heard myself want Daniel to hold my arm.
Compartment,
fixed depth, correct angle,
foreshortened hand over continuous movement. Foaming sun
over heartbeat and water. Skin against, water against. How long does it take
to hear the pitch in the flywheel? Alive: compartment,
the water in a wordless shout. The front and the back. Pulling and up of did
anyone how can to to stand in which to really grasps . . . I pulled it across
and lowered it, flattening it. Rain
like wind on water. Daniel,
Danny,
calling and
calling to be taken away keeps being born.
Thank you for answering my question. Clutching at the silver hands.
Three forearms for seven people, fourteen elbows, fifteen wrists for seven
people, twenty five palms on Daniel’s right eye. Cut into strips. A good home
and a new use.
A sliding plus sign, widening h. The notch holds the stop.
Picturing.
Picturing Danny.
Front: painted with red and white hatching.
A stack of knees (the flashing moving leaves or bricks) in Princeton, NJ. A
newborn, a transparent newborn, an octave.
A transparent newborn being carried to someone came true.
A straight line of tilting foreheads came true. Daniel heard the door close.
I’m sorry. Why are you sad?
Always
seems like an accident. I pulled the t shirt over my head.
Front: A scrolled open cupboard and a vaulted ceiling.
I think of the sound of my breath and there’s no contour. Five steps from
the bed to the wall. Seven steps from the window to the desk. Everyone was
walking together. No one was facing the direction of the movement. Everyone
was standing outside together in a line.
The outside dimension
reappeared on the inside – in the same location! I think it’s the same as
something bending toward Daniel, running my hands along the rough stalks.
Ten minutes. Half an hour. My mother’s brother died before she was born.
Straightening. Forced to. I
think it’s the same as the day: eggs and a halo, filigree taking off his coat in
a car. Went there for such a short time. What question did Daniel answer? How
much was he capable of asking for or asking to be?
Tomorrow seems quiet. A cold white cup by mistake.
I carry with.
I don’t think it should have that shape.
Get up. Get up from the pile.
Hands clasped at the back of the thigh. One hand. Enough? To be enough.
Everyone else and/or harm and responsibility, electricity, beauty. Continuous
backs of the floating thighs. Asymmetrical lightnesses struggle into red and blue
points. There’s nothing for it to resemble so clouds of black feeling float over it,
little packets of radiating softness.
Can’t fade where the implement lifts. It’s like steam or someone’s internal
color.
Diamond cross section,
the ribs spinning in a sheath of water.
Daniel reached forward to push or pull.
Opaque sky, Danny. Transparent sky. Please.
Picturing
Danny,
river of one color
from where I’m shining back.
One person for the absent day. One sound for the transparent day. Please.
Please.
•
Oliver Strand lives in Gloucester, MA, and teaches intro sculpture and 3D design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He received an MFA from Brown Univ. in 2016, and his work has been published in The Fanzine, Poor Claudia and the Brooklyn Review, among others. You can find more of his poetry through Twitter @railroadbridge.
