Settle down if you can be
still at the mouth
and let water, let bread

Take to furling upon sills
while counting rice and radio
stations tucked behind knees

Coffee rings of theory,
the pantry of chapped hands
by bottled, burnishing wind

Were there another way to see
you than rounded by sticking
pixels, beads suggesting face

Of course, this is forever.

This, the press of petals between
fingers, the popping rhyme
of flame and flesh

Vesper dangs at noon
but birds
wound to branches like letters

May your god in mint ropes visit
for only a week, however those are
counted, by sand or stair

Through glass, paper, or shock
a wave passes
until onto the next

*

Annie Goold is from a small rural town in Illinois. Her work has previously appeared in Matter Monthly and is forthcoming in Another Chicago Magazine. She lives and writes in Olympia, WA.