Fifty floors above the street,
you in a summer dress. Star-shaped holes in a steel chandelier
giving shape to the stars’ elsewhereness—
Or a tall flag snaps
against a sour-looking sky, and troopers sailing in by parachute
are clothespins
pinning up the sky. Or someone sets a fire
by kissing an inlaid floor of stone.
In the subway, we see an old woman
a million miles from home. The galaxies known by number
outnumbering those with names…
I marry you in the morning
and I marry you each day.
I feel the strain inside the song,
the Atlantic in the shell.
I feel a tall wind rising up to take
and bear me far away.
from Charms Against LightningFind it in the library
Copyright © 2012 James Arthur
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.