Michael H. Brownstein has nine poetry chapbooks including A Period of Trees (Snark Press, 2004), Firestorm: A Rendering of Torah (Camel Saloon Press, 2012), and The Possibility of Sky and Hell (White Knuckle Press, 2013). He is the editor of First Poems from Viet Nam (2011).
THE VIEW FROM THE CRAWLSPACE
My brother called me from the Florida wetlands.
It’s been raining all week, he said,
and then held the phone away from his ear
so I can hear the steel vibrations of tree frogs,
vertical line twanging with instruction.
Driving my son on an errand, he pointed to the hills and said,
The only thing I like about Mid-Missouri—
the gray fog in the distance
branching itself into wrinkles.
That night N. said to me: Camping is an aphrodisiac
And I thought to myself I never have anything to say.
MASKING THE MASCULINE
--from a Hopi ceremonial dance performed by men only wearing the face of a woman
When he put on the Kaschina mask,
he became a woman,
a subtle change
one to the other--
the gentle pull of flesh
at his nipples,
the sudden erosion of depth
at his waist,
a burgeoning weight
from within his hips.
He wondered if everything
could ever
change back to how it began,
but her smile became flirtatious,
her eyes larger, laughing,
thick with the glow of sex.
No longer did she feel
a wanderlust of penis,
but instead,
an empathy for that outside
to enter.
AS THE ICE MELTS, THE BLOOD BEGINS TO BOIL
Do you not understand the strike in lightning,
the thunder curse that comes after,
the unsustainable armadillos moving
northwards with the warm waters?
Rootworm, boll weevil, red-winged
blackbird, great grizzly of the western caves,
West Niles virus, give us your best shot.
The Australian box jellyfish drinks
in the oxygen of a change in weather,
its long tentacles black lipsticked tire treads,
wind worn, wind weaved, a car careening
out of control, its driver breaking ferociously,
an oak, thick weed, tall grass, the only future
either will ever know. Make sure
the last woman alive turns out the lights.
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