Nicole Norman
untitled

There is something aimless about it all:
guilty, like scissors cutting paper.

The gentle decrescendo of a tea bag
in the graceless motion of lamplight,

bears at the windows and the heavy thrill
of it lingers here, but

across the dark night
moist surfaces are drying out against the air.

Those pregnant tides of cello
ebb untender in

the reckless taste of vinegar,
ankles caught in traps,

the songs that tripped over twigs,
and the apes that died in the grass:

it slips away like unmoored ships
in the hours before the coda.

<< Back to Issue 8, 2005