risen, out from bed, yesterday’s
Joshua Aiken
lunch on the pillow, blueness comes.
and of my body, rutted, I make a grain.
civilize my tenement. my dog stays
my dog. her, idol falsified with an always
-plopped tongue. dismantle my vision:
we both find salmon in the trees.
I soften by way of verse in the leaves.
she walks me, my girl, because I’m gravel
—what colors could a minced form see?
God, what takes out the other: the flesh
or the wind it seeks? to be well is to be
a season. to roman numeral park steps,
not to count them; to mediate grace,
unforced, to singalong with what a pause
means. there’s no accident, I made
a home I could shatter. a self-dealt
set of dirty nails and coughed-up pain.
on her leash, shoulder brushing dew,
my humiliation humbles, my tenacity,
slight, lets fall apart the coronated whole.
on earth, no humans involved, revealed light
makes me modern and fatigued. I only say
I’m sorry and, if I’m sorry; it’s in the tomb
that I am. no new feelings
come. to be without genus—a cultivator’s
bush so loved, unconsumed

to not be the copper-fur led-ambling figure
that when I follow, I fail
and fail to reset. to stop being a language
with clean ends, we
lap water from two fountains. I’m
a chronic sweat. a complicating response.
but this time I’ll trust. the salmon.
the sun. the son I shield
my eyes from worships
suns we never knew.