“A Quarterly
Published Strictly
Quarterly”
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Ten fathoms deep in darkness
Octopus slithers and swerves
in and out of the crevices,
escaping his fate as hors d'œuvre.
With deadly ink, he blackjacks,
meanwhile detaching an arm
PART IV: I once drank with an auctioneer who remarked that there's often a sad story involved when an old toy is found in good condition.
~WITH~
Here is multiversal New York on a sulky grey Sunday early in June, and I am awake too early and standing on a dock in Jersey City, keys in hand, trying to shake the chaos I left behind when I crossed the Hudson.
Thin minnows swim
at the rim of the pond.
They dart like match
light.
How to flee
is in them, natural
as thirst.
Their silver attraction,
a trap: my dipped net
is always empty.
A caribou cloud grazes
on the blue plains,
its back dispersing,
hindquarters laid out,
rump and thigh
on a butcher block.