Robert Wrigley
Last night's gale tied the tails of the wind
sock in knots, and what's
left of the storm pulls against my arm
as I unravel each strip and feed it free.
There was a wind once I leaned against
and did not fall. Above the tree line,
at eleven thousand feet, stripped
in the lethal sun of July
and leaned back into it, stoned
on thin air. Think of a hand, a wing
out the window of a car, the dream inside
that easy dip and rise . . .
Slanted back, we could cup the wind
with our hands and it would stand us up,
each of us apart, but not together,
though we tried, a sun-burnt, wind-galled,
kama sutra of the air, laughing, teeth chattering
through the kisses.
And who knows which of us cared less for our shirts
blown away that day, aswirl
in a thermal shaft and filled again and again
by a bottomless, heroic wind. My skivvies
might have made the moon for all I knew,
and they may bloom there still,
her petal yellow panties
tangled on a stalk of heather.
Think of tears and watery eyes, the body's
unsoulful crying. Think of wind
and risk, speedometer needle backwards
at zero, head hung out blind with desire.
This morning I woke from a dream of love
just fading. I lay there
and let my blood subside,
let the pulse in my ears slow down to a stride.
What a sweetness is in memory
is balanced by a pain
like any other pleasure
our bodies cannot feel.
In my hands, the wind sock quivers, undone.
I was holding on, I was inside
the buck of the wind,
and it went on and on,
like the sock quivering in my hands, undone,
a power I will have to let go.
Tables of Content
Seventeen (Fall 2003)
Sixteen (Spring 2003)
Fifteen (Fall 2002) Fourteen (Spring 2002)
Thirteen
(Fall 2001) Twelve (Spring 2001)
Eleven (Fall 2000)
Ten (Spring 2000)
Nine (Fall 1999) Eight (Spring 1999)
Seven, (Fall 1998) Six, (Spring 1998)
Five (Fall 1997) Four (Winter/Spring 1997)
Three (Summer/Fall 1996) Two (Winter 1996)