Caleb Curtiss
Here a tree line, just visible, rising above a wall of brush
and of bramble full with the small things of brush: miniscule limbs,
heads and wings and eyes like strange, smooth oaths; some wings
are wings of feather and slight bone while others are slight,
paper-like like the wares of a gift shop set up for the curious
passerby. Here a clearing
full too, in its way, with the more mundane, the less obscure:
holder of the body, holder of the expanse that is gradually
not the body. And here
the body: eyes blinking and wet, hair a thrum of grass insects
and grass and ground, feet a curl of toes, knees folded
apart, torso just now starting to dry: brackish as shore
will stay brackish after the tide has retreated even hours earlier
and lips, yes, lips imparting what they impart: here a toothy silence,
a stillness that holds the breeze that blows the tall grass that grows
where field becomes brush, exhaling an abrupt departure
and holding it there: a clench, a release, but still
holding it there: still tight and not
letting go.