T.J. McLemore
Reduced
Originally published in 32 Poems.
The same math that mounds up
this thunderhead pins us down,
peels back the stubborn veil
of the flesh—but only what’s shrouded
in dark can be blinded
by light. Inside every body
a hundred miles of miracle.
Heat lightning leaps the world’s
synapses out beyond the mountains.
A single bolt arcs up from
the cedar’s crown down the street
to meet a flash shattering
its alien script across the sky.
A quick blackout of the senses,
concentric blink, a cold shock
to wipe the insides blank.
The forecast says rain for days.
Sometimes the world is profligate,
holding nothing back, renewing
the passing wonder we are.
Ghost Particle
Originally published in Tupelo Quarterly.
How the light gives us shape and tears at us.
This Polaroid ruined, streaked by stray rays and snow.
Or perfected: your one eye a coal, the other a star.
The horse’s fence a brushstroke of white, a blaze. Scarring his face.
The exposure doubles: two horses, four, beside you.
Your hands everywhere on the animal, your face unresolved.
Too many poses to reconcile.
Too many angles to consider from a single point in space.
Snow blindness is like that, a buildup of glare from all sides.
And the packed ice under us, which keeps nothing.
Or like the smallest particles that stream from the sun.
They run us through and through, touching no part of us.
