On the 80th anniversary of his death, I write another poem about Uncle Al
July 17th, 1943
Spontaneous as the fly after the Garden
spinning up from a trail of spoiled
meat, the Earth’s first map, spanning from gate
and sentry-swords, their ambling flames,
into a middle-distance like an aftermath, newly minted.
Yesterday reminded itself that one year, years ago,
the Bomb became a gap in the door spilling light like vines
loosed from the Garden, but not the Garden,
rather an iteration, a mutation in the continuum of Gardens.
More like a sphere of eyes trailing trick ropes
trapped in the gaze of a high speed camera,
all up in flames, all up in flames, all
loosed into the world in waves and tangents
and particles and piercing strains.
A rhizomatic sprawl, upheaval coiled like wisteria,
scratched cuneiform spelling out the murder
of the Heavenly Ox. Lo! The fire atlas
courses like years over our bodies.
Two years and one day before the test, you dipped yourself in the river.
The mystic form is
contradictory
and circular:
eye, coil, crater, drowning.
Aubade for Unkind Ridges
A landscape is taken in increments
shadows mat distance to mountains
like sopping fur
there could be bodies in those hills
for all we know
massacres wide as mines deveined
land unrecognizable
but for thorny history
buttes like afterthoughts
calderas like the children
we’ll never have
parched arroyos named
for the long-dead
anglo ranchers
senile State Reps
pidgin Spanish
element indivisible
from invasive species
shadow of a common raven careens
long-decayed coyote transects
reverberates the chaparral
with lullabies written
for fear by flies
dirt prowling with scars
at sunrise bruises pool
over each mile
subcutaneous echoes
carrion footfalls
last breaths freshly winged
***
the drowned mouse devolving
in our water jug
a decline perfectly preserved
just for our gawking
the horizon
the mouse’s slim fingers
mottled with air bubbles
bursting
across elbow
shoulder
jaw
dwindle and slouch
toward myopic backdrop
as imperceptible as wishing
how can we reconcile
the spout’s iris
not so much raging
but fading
into molecular reticence
we recede into Chisos dirt
like lapped water
what we carried here
we brought to drown
cactus spines
stones small
as indifference
as heavy
this sunrise a capsule
for our silent veneration
of graceless endings
***
trace is buried everywhere our
incessant desires drum along
fingerbones.
to foreign bones
far-off hills scabbed
unnavigable
craving blisters’ roots
pining for the rabbit
transforming
into bitumen and steam
our nostalgia
like a dog’s tooth
half-rotten in gums
the stains this land hoards
in unseen numbers
its marvels
our terrors
trace the contours
of a rotting giant
whose sunken chest
our flattened soles
stow each harbored hunger
knock for false ribs
we stumble across sinkholes
sweet things will do anything for silence
a landscape takes in increments.
33°40’38’’N
Lizards and ants cordon salt from blood yellow, scarlet, opal. The burnt out axel maps a continent in char, a starling makes a nest in a fledgling’s head, our yearning plagues bedrock. Today, clear cut of the lechuguilla’s palling scent, is all vacancy. We listen as songbirds plummet.
— C. Rees (he/they) is a poet and writer from southeastern Pennsylvania living in Austin, TX, and can be found on Instagram @17_yrbrood. They hold an MFA from the New Writers Project at the University of Texas. His work has appeared in Frontier Poetry, Bat City Review, The Shore Poetry, Territory, the Action Books Blog, and elsewhere.