The look I am hunting: the onethat through color and cut glares
the starer into a skull or a skeinof lightning, a switch
stalled at dawn, or the gloamingalong an equator. What fascinates
I shine like flame-blackened foil,a rhinestone snoring at lake bottom,
a wreck’s brass-bound astrolabe,bright as hard tender, newly minted,
mewling and naked underoil-slick pleather sieving light,
prism-like, my limbs sing their sirensong, pull ribbons of pure note over
the pack’s snarl and bark, teeth pop,dangling chain of saliva snaps—
deep under, I stayseamless as a safe, a rust-sealed letter
box, corroded pill case, my insidesscoured to looking glass
by a tangle of wind trapped,a cyclone circling the space
the size a doll’s eye makes,panting my small breath.
Maggie Queeney is the author of settler, selected by Shane…