Song

Rings and strings
What use have I for these things?
Bells and carousels
I'd just be fooling myself . . .

The rest of life pales in significance
I'm looking for somebody with whom to dance

From "With Whom to Dance?," by Magnetic Fields

strum

In another room
head tilted his face
a blur of brightness
beneath the hanging light
he does not look up
at the hush of her slippers on the floor;
she squints to see
his mouth squeezed round
but only imagines
its shape beyond the light's
glare. When she closes
her eyes
she sees it
like a red thumbprint
behind her lid
tries to see more
than this fierce halo
finally fading as she
imagines him sitting
beside her
absent-mindedly
brushing
her ankle
with the backs of his fingers
as if strumming
a guitar.

leaf

She is not here on the braided rug,
warm and thick, scrunched and small the sky
goes purple and swollen the air is quiet,
swells, explodes, the tree limbs turn
upside down light green white leaves flash
and roll with it all she
with it all her arms turn up to meet
the sky the hot air like from a mouth arms
a slash of white against purple she wants
to be inhaled like an accidental bug she wants
to know why they watch and worry why
they think her important enough to hide, big
enough to be noticed,
choked on, she turns her edges to
the sky and waits to catch fire.