from How It Was with Scotland

 

down the road around the bend

follow the white bird’s wings

hoops & sticks & skips into dusk

one bite from the roof

carnival lights calliope

one sugary shard from a windowpane

 

 

here light expands

on a path without breadcrumbs

in the sky no clouds only the house

as it ascends

while she waves

then turns

toward a face

first glimpsed

when the search began

 

 

inside out

disconnect of street and sidewalk

don’t forget your promise

faint sketch of a man

rarely mentioned

every room three inches square

 

 

tent for grass and

this solace you play

with me today around the ring

a rose the flowers begin

 

 

someone calls

where we do not hear

we are not lonely

a far away train it passes

we take root

just outside

the more and more

because that voice

will want to know

what we cannot say

through the trying

that won’t go down

to the patch of green

we want to believe

 

 

can you see

the feet and ready for running

like a gazelle someone says

and even though

a pretend smile

this coming home

maybe we

sit down together

and could

plan more tomorrow

first one begins

closer in

to a table

when eyes don’t turn away

we live

 

 

night birds hover

over all we might have lived if

this yellow incandescence

had adjusted to the shift

door ajar

close to where I stand

the mind of a star has filled me

astral horizon dark command

 

* * * * * * * * *

Joan Fiset is a writer and therapist in Seattle, WA. Her book of memoir prose poems, Now the Day is Over (Blue Begonia, 1998) won the King County Publication Award. “After” was a finalist in the 2008 Floating Bridge Chapbook competition. She has completed “Washing Clothes in Moonlight: The War Stories of Xuan Ngoc Nguyen” in collaboration with Xuan. Her poems have appeared in Tarpaulin Sky, Wave Books’ The Bedazzler, and Pontoon 2008.

Noah Saterstrom is an artist, writer and curator living in Tucson, AZ. He has exhibited paintings, drawings, prints, and installations, most recently in New Orleans, LA, Glasgow, UK, Bisbee, AZ, and Brooklyn, NY. His writing and text/image collaborations have been published in Denver Quarterly, Tarpaulin Sky, and Black Warrior Review. He is founder and curator of the cross-genre quarterly Trickhouse. Visit his website at www.noahsaterstrom.com