Nathan Spoon
THE IMAGINARY ADVERTISERS
People with addictive voices are suddenly appearing
at elbows across America. While error shakes its own
dust from earth, these voices carry us onward. As a result
there will be no moment when earth is anything more than
a potato covered in guano from Nassau. The current
whereabouts of Nassau is a question that has drifted the air
since before earth existed. Now our bodies are somersaulting
through the gorgeous blindness of our lives, even as they,
and we, remain untranslated. Who, at any rate, could presume
possessing the ability to do such a thing? It is summer.
Weeds will be taking our yards by storm if we don’t respond
with appropriate force. Force turns the wheels of cars through
the hearts of last season’s ephemerals. We miss them
almost more than we hate tonight for being as clogged
with mosquitoes and black flies as it is. It’s upsetting to hear
that the sky will not be returning. We liked having it near.
* * *
SMALL TOWN FREQUENCY
Nothing remains as evidence of the invasion
except a single artifact, presently on display
at the local museum. The invasion was as much
a success as it was a failure. They never left
and more of them will be arriving any day.
The square is silent. The air is full of empty
hooks. Yesterday Gertrude had a dozen roses
delivered to this address, while a bird nesting
in a stopped up gutter returned with food for
her hungry babies. Life goes on like nothing
happened, like any moment things are going to
return to the way they were. But things are as
they are. The mother bird has settled back over
her nest built in a gutter under historic eaves.
* * *
THE STAKES OF A NEW POSTURE
These are the cosmopolitan worlds
of high stakes and curved
memories. If a stone replaces a moon
how many stars will notice? If breath
mimics structures of stone which cycles
continue? Beyond the tangle of honeysuckle
vines along the pasture fence there are
cows. There is a turtle in a box. It lives happily
until extenuating circumstances blow it
into the wildness it inherently possesses.
Nathan Spoon is the author of Doomsday Bunker (Swan World). His other publications include Poetry, Mantis, Oxford
Poetry and the anthology What Have You Lost? (HarperCollins). He is Senior Editor of X-Peri and
has read his poems at the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University and the ALSCW Conference.
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