At Present
BY JANE HUFFMAN
as in days I fall asleep before dusk,
when the blue difference between
two things is still plausible.
And wake after dawn, the blood
already mopped from the floors,
the sink already scoured. So much
is possible in my absence
that when I wake, I’m delighted,
lighter, prone to a crack of real laughter,
a snake run through me like a wire.
Or like a snake run through with a wire
run though me. As in I’m relieved,
can ease the tautness of my mouth
around the finger of the world.
The work of the conscious is risk,
plunging a hand into the red seagrass
to pull up a string of oysters, or taking
down from the mantle my mother’s pottery
for dusting, oil lamp by oil lamp.
