RESISTANCE
A paper cut from the map was inoculation
All night the slick machine of the river
polished shad and Frances the geographer
noticed the earth starting to slope down
to oxbows now eyebrows and resorts
We ran a slight fever to adapt
We passed through Louisiana the dark
landscapes trying on ill fitting storms
a lush crowding of weeds ginkgo pecans
vines with their hands out
Bank swallows wrote in chancery
above a substance entirely surface
and Canadas rose from the river
to nibble the bean fields
Green creeks had green skies in them
leaves weighted so they fell to be kayaks
spiraling drifting all the colorful fall
dismounts renewing passion for the absent
A whole day named for a planet
A week with geographical antigens
We were not immune
~
CONFIRMATION
All deaths were black despite the satin pillows
and the ornamental dusk
There used to be a bed by that name and people
could look at their furniture
that cot that mattress with a grim recognition
nothing rickettsial but catching
even a sunny parlor was a host to foreboding
I gave up overconfidence
Cremation was the confirmation that this is it
Dust on the counter brushed off
So long to somebody’s uncle the hospitals
sending ash aloft from surgeries
to blanket the cities even winter dressed
like a bride turned dingy from grit
small clouds used for breaths
boiled from the stacks above houses
lucky storks on the chimneys in Amsterdam
~
ANY CHAOS
Any chaos is calmed by adding a horizon
As the sky and the water have made a seam
the sun and the cutters follow
The house has reached a stable configuration
Frances has arranged for the cardinal directions
The nest of the lesser goldfinch is at the window
pearl in its bivalve below a mirror
Stand in one place and things gather around you
ivy and brocade comfortably button at the wrist
To know about the future read the past
so much has been forgotten so much
that could have changed everything sooner
To say everything about the peace of it all
would take a life it would take here to Mars
on your hands and knees
so no need to read mysteries the world is plenty
down to the smallest thing and we don’t yet know
the smallest thing
~
HISTORIC
What I thought was historic was Pierre Bonnard
who had known Monet and all the ice cream light
in Argenteuil overlapping my life by seven years
who married his model and layers of sun
on a bathtub and the byzantine oceans and blue seas
I see the date 1947 when he died and the lop-sided table
leaning with its powderpuff against a corner
the woman Marta dissolving in oranges and sleep
on the right side of the canvas He floats with me
above the continuous tables spilled fruit juices colors
the light on them and his mind making use of the eerie
white horse so unlike any other in the brushwork hills
the little curtains the same hue pulled down
over the graveyard But this is not about death but life
that is history even as it happens
~
ANESTHESIA
After Pearl the bullets could shoot between fan props
After the gallstones came home in a little jar for her dresser
she said to the grandchildren yes I had whole trees of hair then
over my forehead rocks in my abdomen sliding as I walked
graceful and dangerous as Bird-Jaguar in the glyphs
I remember the first time I had wings like bookshelves.
I could remember back that far I remember the surprising
ease of amnesia and the dream that opened a door
over Kitty Hawk that never closed I remember how
new chicks flattened from shadows
I was two and my ears and tonsils were in a hospital
I remember the tingle in my fingers had lift
I counted backwards to the gas till I flew
~
Allan Peterson’s most recent book is This Luminous, New and Selected Poems, (Panhandler Books), a finalist for the 2020 Oregon Book Award. Some other titles include Precarious (42 Miles Press); All the Lavish in Common (University of Massachusetts Press, Juniper Prize); and Fragile Acts (McSweeney’s), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Reached at www.allanpeterson.net