--Derek Mong
begin from above. The first line wrote itself
in eraser. Your entrance refills with its cloud.
Can you feel now a dull tug on your pant leg?
You have shadows within shadows.
The poem strips them off like spare parachutes.
Watch their dark mouths briefly glisten
like guardrail reflectors. Leave silence
between them like warm loaves of bread.
Whatever small truth the poem hurtles toward
is already in your pockets. Release it here
and stop breathing. Watch it rain down
like disco ball light. If a story comes in, cold
from the margins, you alone can warm
its feet. To do so you must hold it
beneath the voice that trails you.
You offer the one it becomes on the ground.
The seamless transfer of two people
humming is one scenario in which the poem
successfully ends. In another these couplets empty
and you are a diver climbing their cool tubes
back up to the start. From there you see its finale
clearly, but do nothing to alter its course.
You'll soon crash through a tenth story window.
Do not worry. The poem's safe.
See its thousand shards glint at your feet.
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