Allison Cobb

March

You have something about the wetness of the world to tell me.
-- D. Rothschild

Now I am stone or air
from a shaft     bit
of plastic caught in the updraft
the water's white crest
against docks    what
am emerged from the place
of my genetic groaning   am blond
stone in mist stone on stone
memory of glaciers
veined in as romance    or
I woke up or else sank
into street breath drowned
in exhaust   siren tide   my tick
of pulse   fade   all faded
toward under   a city
inverted   tips of spires
pointing toward the lake of fire O
selves do I stand
now head down   sky leaking
into my nostrils   see   folded
like skin layers cities
earths   the beige bag of universe
island where the missing gather
ring   ring finger   leg   strange money
and heads. Heads here lack the personality
of limbs which can gesture   I
this    am parts   the muddy green
Navy tattoo   see   on the hairy forearm
of my forebear. I'm in it
the anchor ink    its own ocean
warm there    I know
the knife love of him
who killed two Japanese soldiers with what
a sob   I have something ridiculous
in my mouth.

Copyright © 2003 Allison Cobb

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