Route 7 Review | Page 50

* Half iron, half oak, the bed all night honed on what went wrong –it’s an axe, striking upside down though you sleep facing north side by side an empty dress shaped into bulls and chariots with your mouth wide apart louder and louder getting ready for the slow descent –you sit on the edge, trying to bleed to open the sleeves still reaching out in the dark. * It was a lake, used to bodies :islands With an everlasting sunset and the glare From jewelry, veils slowly drifting down As the footsteps that now weigh so much –it came here the way an icy stream enters a slope that can no longer right itself has no water left to give, no nights, no arms though you are reaching for these dead by hauling off smaller and smaller stones on tip-toe, paving your hands for the unease already smelling from wood, rope, holes hidden in bracelets and never let go. * Again and again you begin each night as if this faucet climbs only in the dark will widen its slow turn