A Display of Mackerel
By MARK DOTY
They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity
barred with black bands,
which divide the scales’
radiant sections
like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery
prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soapbubble sphere,
think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way
distinguished from the other
—nothing about them
of individuality. Instead
they’re all exact expressions
of the one soul,
each a perfect fulfilment
of heaven’s template,
mackerel essence. As if,
after a lifetime arriving
at this enameling, the jeweler’s
made uncountable examples,
each as intricate
in its oily fabulation
as the one before
Suppose we could iridesce,
like these, and lose ourselves
entirely in the universe
of shimmer—would you want
to be yourself only,
unduplicatable, doomed
to be lost? They’d prefer,
plainly, to be flashing participants,
multitudinous. Even now
they seem to be bolting
forward, heedless of stasis.
They don’t care they’re dead
and nearly frozen,
just as, presumably,
they didn’t care that they were living:
all, all for all,
the rainbowed school
and its acres of brilliant classrooms,
in which no verb is singular,
or every one is. How happy they seem,
even on ice, to be together, selfless,
which is the price of gleaming.
By MARK DOTY
They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity
barred with black bands,
which divide the scales’
radiant sections
like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery
prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soapbubble sphere,
think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way
distinguished from the other
—nothing about them
of individuality. Instead
they’re all exact expressions
of the one soul,
each a perfect fulfilment
of heaven’s template,
mackerel essence. As if,
after a lifetime arriving
at this enameling, the jeweler’s
made uncountable examples,
each as intricate
in its oily fabulation
as the one before
Suppose we could iridesce,
like these, and lose ourselves
entirely in the universe
of shimmer—would you want
to be yourself only,
unduplicatable, doomed
to be lost? They’d prefer,
plainly, to be flashing participants,
multitudinous. Even now
they seem to be bolting
forward, heedless of stasis.
They don’t care they’re dead
and nearly frozen,
just as, presumably,
they didn’t care that they were living:
all, all for all,
the rainbowed school
and its acres of brilliant classrooms,
in which no verb is singular,
or every one is. How happy they seem,
even on ice, to be together, selfless,
which is the price of gleaming.
Courthouse Steps
By D. A. POWELL
to say no more of art than that it makes, by its very distraction
a mode of abiding
accordingly, its variations: each type of thread-and-piecework
named double engagement ring, log cabin, or broken dishes
all built on the same geometric figures—
precise interception of angle and line
so too each tale of love is rooted in that first tale: the poet
descending to the underworld
finally granted his shade, who'll follow him
only to disappear again. perhaps one version has them reunite
affixed in their solo chromospheres the stars, which,
to the human eye, appear to overlap
substanceless love
immune at last to gravity and time—
in texas (I might as well recount this as a story) there's a town
with a courthouse built on concrete and twisted iron
edified in red granite, capitals & architrave of red sandstone
with point and punch, a carver broached the effigy of his muse
he rendered her attractive features, down to the very blush
of course she spurned him,
of course there was another to whom she turned
love should not be written in stone but written in water
(I paraphrase the latin of catullus)
the sculptor carried on: not just the face of his beloved
but the face of her other lover:
snaggle-toothed, wart-peppered, pudgy
them both, made into ugly caricatures of themselves, as wanton
as the carver perceived them, and as lewd
well, craze and degenerate and crack: the portraits hold
though, long since, the participants have dwindled into dirt
beautiful. unbeautiful. each with an aspect of exactness
tread light upon this pedestal. dream instead of a time before
your love disfigured, a time
withstanding even crass, wind-beaten time itself
By D. A. POWELL
to say no more of art than that it makes, by its very distraction
a mode of abiding
accordingly, its variations: each type of thread-and-piecework
named double engagement ring, log cabin, or broken dishes
all built on the same geometric figures—
precise interception of angle and line
so too each tale of love is rooted in that first tale: the poet
descending to the underworld
finally granted his shade, who'll follow him
only to disappear again. perhaps one version has them reunite
affixed in their solo chromospheres the stars, which,
to the human eye, appear to overlap
substanceless love
immune at last to gravity and time—
in texas (I might as well recount this as a story) there's a town
with a courthouse built on concrete and twisted iron
edified in red granite, capitals & architrave of red sandstone
with point and punch, a carver broached the effigy of his muse
he rendered her attractive features, down to the very blush
of course she spurned him,
of course there was another to whom she turned
love should not be written in stone but written in water
(I paraphrase the latin of catullus)
the sculptor carried on: not just the face of his beloved
but the face of her other lover:
snaggle-toothed, wart-peppered, pudgy
them both, made into ugly caricatures of themselves, as wanton
as the carver perceived them, and as lewd
well, craze and degenerate and crack: the portraits hold
though, long since, the participants have dwindled into dirt
beautiful. unbeautiful. each with an aspect of exactness
tread light upon this pedestal. dream instead of a time before
your love disfigured, a time
withstanding even crass, wind-beaten time itself