Rob Schlegel

from WRACK LINE

[From the car’s engine, oil leaked on my way]

[This is all to say we have kept our cousins from the river.]

[Surrounded by a featureless horizon]

[Only in the lake’s flat surface can I finally see my own swallow]

From the car’s engine, oil leaked on my way

to the Convention on Localization

whose keynote advised how I ought to concern myself

with nothing but what occurs within a ten-mile radius of my hometown.

The convention was sponsored by The People

Constantly on the Lookout for Remote and Rugged Land,

the people who say we have many friends who are Indians.

And a ton of friends who are gay.

This is all to say we have kept our cousins from the river.

Nothing natural about persuasion. This country

is no longer ours. The road-side special is sperm

and eggs. In the economy atmosphere, I tell jokes

to Jimmy Kimmel who is counting carp in the wooden bucket.

They've all caught fire. We’ve twenty years

to solve this thing. The race has ten to expire.

Surrounded by a featureless horizon

I am lost in the middle of the water.

I recognize certain movements of American lekking birds.

Especially their displays of multi-colored plumage.

A trade of goods between hill-families.

Cannibals comparing notes…the sun is in the thigh

…in the bowels, old women lure Surgeon’s Astronomy

from obscurity into the promise of greater obscurity.

Only in the lake’s flat surface can I finally see my own swallow.

It moves down my throat slower than I imagined.

Articulations of prayer haunt me from the citizenry.

Giacometti, I want to be your walking man but only

if I can walk through a wall of lemon meringue.

I teach boat-builders the thrill of teak. In accidents of twain,

I leak sources across the water—palisadic views of steel buildings.

I have pocketed ice. I am a lake of light.