Easy Listening
by Katie Naughton
Movement of locust leaves movement
of air moving the leaves a breath a flight
fluid above it quick hinge of wing gliding
starling before the stars the late light
of May time a breath a movement
the air around the legs mine I will
place myself here in this time
of hazed bluing gold light a sound
a movement the muscle my leg makes
a strength out and out across
the street in front of the house this evening
*
I’m telling you the color of the light in the hills
at the end of the day when it’s warm
has rained I’m saying the words wax begonia
*
all night on the edge of sound
everyone else is inside of
*
it’s six hundred dollars
to fly across an ocean
I’m waiting
something changes & I don’t know it
*
it’s the detail of when the sun is setting
it’s the lilac white and purple
it’s the red of the small house
the vertical boards the rise
of their ribs from the surface
*
in bed the world contracts
to your exhausted eye
opening
a last time
for me
lasting
again and again
named a last time
into what
I don’t know
*
things being what they are
*
a coin the state made flat and concrete
listening at the window
gold and shining
the hours of the buildings
the small lamps in the windows
the pushcarts of newspapers
children and their parents
*
I could believe in what is real
as the reflective surface
cutting the kitchen in half
reaching into its milky replication
the sink the oven a family
is as simple as this a child
a window opened again
as simple as this a family
*
as though the sun’s daily metaphor
across the sky were not ecstatic transport
return return return return return
it’s only ever always space and time
*
throwing my shoulder forward
recognition of the jaw held fast
in the mouth in the middle of the night
sound before phoneme before meaning
body of voice thrown into sound
by what breath age’s gravel
the only mark of unendingness we have
the refusal to stop until stopped
*
peony geranium a terrace &
the water voices coming across
exhaustion’s baffle and mostly
otherwise silence I’m told
there’s some feeling doesn’t need
to be fixed – hours on the shore
diesel boat engine roars
louder than the ear
*
the sun tonight setting after
eleven as far north as we’ll go
a few weeks until midsomar
we’ll be married we’ll save flowers
we’ll give what we’re given to
everyone the sun spreads
into a crown a flaring
a made place at the edge
of the water and sky