Eye Against Eye [excerpt]

Forrest Gander

As if nothing were wrong egrets dip-feed in near shore channels

the human genome reveals chromosomes from parasites

annexed by our DNA long ago

mongrels to the core and tourists

with cameras take the front pews

the enemy blows himself up at Passover dinner

the enemy trembles in a cave starving

the enemy lets go a daisy cutter

a million cubic feet of mud slides down the slope

toward a single bungalow in Laguna Beach

An olivine moon. The sum of what
he knows of her is balanced
on what he doesn’t know.

Came home early and caught her
singing in the shower.

His insides stirred as though, for lunch,
he’d eaten sardines and a parrot.

The covenant and affirmation of being
his beloved’s beloved.

But the true explanation of an intimacy
is the duration of that intimacy.

Like an evening coming alive
with fireflies, he feels himself
pulsing from vivid amber to green.

Forrest Gander

2024

In the city, a weather of zeros-and-ones

cascades through rising static, while here

in this xeric topography, we fold ourselves

into the circumstance of desert foothills

chewed away by leprosies, toothed winds, and

sudden rains. Will you let me

approach you? Bend forward

Forrest Gander

2024

Poems