Elizabeth Zuba
from Under the separate sun
**
This is a slightly odd situation
sitting side by side
around what you do to grips
with what really happens
it was a good idea
but then once we were here
we couldn't contain ourselves
under the sun
a place under the sun
is moving and different from finding
a place to stop
touching the green light on the glass
frightfully already budding
a bird on the ledge
chirrups back to other birds on a ledge
and the awkwardness exchanged
comforts
some drop into flight
or mass injection where the everything horizon
walks quietly away from you
and easterly trees raise their limbs
to grab on for dear life, you think
touchingly, the red bark,
the heart and arrow left behind
the fungus that climbs over them
in a series of rising stairs
a gesture of peace, or if not peace,
redemption it sings softly
into the bark's ears the lullaby
about the baby
the baby on its bending boughs
where you would place the electrodes
where you would expect the most activity
you might use a tarantella spin that annuls
the left arm until it petrifies
or the balanced axes of a weathervane
sent skipping downhill
in the ruthless embrace of the numbered
all the necessary elements that brake
boulders into shiny minerals hiding
under new ground waiting for someone
to find them and see in them the faces of angels.
**
The side opposite the right question
of a right-angled hand
held high above the head
make prosaic jerks of the other hand
which has many practical applications
such as calculating the length of a self-measuring human figure
and other distances that might be misunderstood as agreement
hands of a digital clock
marking everything striking nothing
in two perfect congruent squares
I record on my fingers and lay over diminutives
the chewed gum stuck under the table
the mark on the wall where you once were here
I can almost reach you
over the freckle on your sleeping shoulder
the sun from Brooklyn.
**
return to sawbuck 4.1
**
Elizabeth Zuba co-edits swerve magazine and makes art in Brooklyn.
**
This is a slightly odd situation
sitting side by side
around what you do to grips
with what really happens
it was a good idea
but then once we were here
we couldn't contain ourselves
under the sun
a place under the sun
is moving and different from finding
a place to stop
touching the green light on the glass
frightfully already budding
a bird on the ledge
chirrups back to other birds on a ledge
and the awkwardness exchanged
comforts
some drop into flight
or mass injection where the everything horizon
walks quietly away from you
and easterly trees raise their limbs
to grab on for dear life, you think
touchingly, the red bark,
the heart and arrow left behind
the fungus that climbs over them
in a series of rising stairs
a gesture of peace, or if not peace,
redemption it sings softly
into the bark's ears the lullaby
about the baby
the baby on its bending boughs
where you would place the electrodes
where you would expect the most activity
you might use a tarantella spin that annuls
the left arm until it petrifies
or the balanced axes of a weathervane
sent skipping downhill
in the ruthless embrace of the numbered
all the necessary elements that brake
boulders into shiny minerals hiding
under new ground waiting for someone
to find them and see in them the faces of angels.
**
The side opposite the right question
of a right-angled hand
held high above the head
make prosaic jerks of the other hand
which has many practical applications
such as calculating the length of a self-measuring human figure
and other distances that might be misunderstood as agreement
hands of a digital clock
marking everything striking nothing
in two perfect congruent squares
I record on my fingers and lay over diminutives
the chewed gum stuck under the table
the mark on the wall where you once were here
I can almost reach you
over the freckle on your sleeping shoulder
the sun from Brooklyn.
**
return to sawbuck 4.1
**
Elizabeth Zuba co-edits swerve magazine and makes art in Brooklyn.
Labels: 4.1, elizabeth zuba, spring 2010
