By Matthew Falk

 

 

might be a window

or a mirror

reflecting itself.

You’ll have to go 

crabwise

to discover the door

is a trap.

Let it draw you

into the toadless garden

we planted and forgot

to water. Waiter,

there’s a spy

in my suit:

I think he’s me.

 

Curtains make you want

to look behind them.

Mostly what you find there

is that you are not important.

 

You come and go;

the land neither needs

nor remembers you.

you are dry grass

dancing for a day or two

in the indifferent wind.

The stones wait for you to return

their land to them.

 

I could walk

through this field

and feel myself

a creature made of air,

an unbreathed breath,

a thing no longer dogged

by the need to feel necessary.

The best I can do

is leave the land

whole.

In that house I could live

and let myself go.

I could die there

alone, at peace,

and feed the buzzards with this body

that believes it is mine.

In that house I could become

myself; I could

become nothing.

 

Sometimes I find myself

falling through myself

like a collapsing shack.

 

My words turn

into fingers, my fingers

turn into flowers.

In the morning

I wash my bowl,

unfurl broken banners,

boil the milk, empty my pockets,

touch no one.

 

I want to fold myself

into a tiny origami crane

and let the wind

carry me away.

 

 

(Gallery Photography by Elizabeth Laudenslager)

 

 

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