EVERYTHING FASTENED TOGETHER
When two things are sleeping it is almost impossible to tell them apart This is a problem if you are an assassin and you do not want to get in trouble with the clouds who hired you because then they would fall down on you as punishment Clouds display wrath the same way that they show love They are like people So is the sand The whole world must be asleep I cannot take it I’m going to wake the clouds up with non-stop singing They must recite extremely loud their secret names
THE ALTITUDE
This small man is chewing a leaf and looking at the mountain I am looking at him and I think So it has come to this because I think that when anything happens It’s better not to do much not to ask him to point out the sky It’s everywhere around like a family name It’s the substance his looking must fly through like a cloud that conceals its young rain
DRAWING ROOM
I had some guests. I invited them to step with me into the cold blue geometric light. Are you kidding? they said. It’s freezing out there and we are not your guests; we are your family. I was completely taken aback. I had not known we shared a continent, and a small one at that.
Heather Christle is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Heliopause (Wesleyan University Press, 2015). Her first work of nonfiction, The Crying Book, will be out from Catapult in 2019.
