Wed Jul 23, 2008


from Ordinary Work

Kathleen Jesme

3. Bee Counting

Central Park old beech trees begin to lose
their form

copper almost gold

the air turns sweet
bees panic

a day of sudden rain ends
the angle of the sun
along the shadowline:

a bowl tipped
on its side

_

Light seams down between the two darks

they play
at hiding each other: it becomes familiar

Listen, how we absorb the words
of immigrants

reel
them up

in this way all the world’s language
becomes yarn


Tue Jul 22, 2008


from Ordinary Work

Kathleen Jesme

2. Map of the Floating World

Sun-scorched sheets of water under us

a tiny cross: shadow of the plane

cormorant flying low

_

Consecutive days
highs and lows
rain or snow
in the half-inch
moving in
the afternoon

_

Points back where we’ve come

when we are no longer
touching anything but sky

dark blobs of islands
closed eyes
in a huge face

the slight rounding far off north
I come to recognize later as horizon

_

It must be a house: you step over
and you are in—
whether solid or outlined—

_

He took me high enough to see
the thin ridge of sand between bodies of water
where he’d perched our lives

Small mark on the map: each arrangement erases what came before
and is itself
replaced


Mon Jul 21, 2008


from Ordinary Work

Kathleen Jesme

1. Meanwhile

trespassers practice
their craft—

to say what they see there
unboundaried

visions
ethereal airs
the erotics of attachment

the hand-
kerchief dropped
and again fetched up by another hand

certain colors
uncertain
light

precursors
intruders
on the serried edges of
the self

the bitter daughter
bite of dog
edge of the trees
bucket of water: the drink

sudden famil-
iarity
and its opposite

the natural object: the trees the stones
and you—