Wind
Peace came
at once. A cloud
arrow that pierced my corpse
alive. I’d been dead
to all the birds and violets.
It was a severance, the violent
calm that ruptured
a legacy of angers.
When peace came, I reached
inside the wound
and condensed
it into a storm. A dot
on the Doppler map,
but still big to me. Peace
came at the cost of water,
everything, or nothing—
depending. On my way
to the dam
with you, when
peace came, and I missed
everything about myself. I was
a doll inside
a doll whose forecast
is what it is
not possible to predict
the night
I recommended we leave
unprepared, meaning without
coats or fathoming
what was to come. Peace,
then, came in the rain,
and it hurt.
When peace came,
I didn’t know how
to say it, other than point
to myself and shrug
or die or hold
my umbrella over you.
Corner Apartment
Sometimes the sunghost reels
across the sky
to the south, breaking
into the empty guest
room like a butterfly
thief, light
-winged and stealing
darkness from the sandwall,
cloudy paint
that softens the cobweb
-bed corners slipping
into view
over the course of months.
It brings leaves
and sometimes passion
as persistent as the slicing
fan, through spirit
cluttered with debris
from no
skin of ours, becomes
a focal point within
the rotation
of calls from buyers
of old
machines, black
-tipped and blurred
by virtue
of being
on. What spins
cannot be wiped clean;
the dusting we
do is only done
to impress
our visitations. By day,
the shaded yellow
box is calming.
By night,
we have forgotten how
to breathe;
lamplight accentuates
our shadows, caterpillars
of dust
broomed from the edge
of mechanical wind,
and the mattering
world, indistinguishable
from the menial task, drifts
and drifts without end.
Benjamin Faro (Ben, he/him) is the editor of Equatorial Literary Magazine. His poetry appears in American Literary Review, Cream City Review, EcoTheo Review, Nimrod International Journal, Portland Review, San Pedro River Review, Saranac Review, The Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, West Trade Review, and elsewhere.