From the Bookshelf of Around the Year in 52 Books …

Train-Track Figure
Imagine a
train-track figure
made of sliver
over sliver of
between-car
vision, each
slice too brief
to add detail
or deepen: that
could be a hat
if it’s a person
if it’s a person
if it’s a person.
Just the same
scant information
timed to supplant
the same scant
information.

Bitter Pill
A bitter pill
doesn’t need
to be swallowed
to work. Just
reading your name
on the bottle
does the trick.
As though there
were some anti–
placebo effect.
As though the
self were eager
to be wrecked.

Retroactive
If reward or
amends could
set the clock
back, as happens
in fall when
an hour is
stalled for the sake of light,
then our golgothas could be put right.
The kiss or reform
or return of the
family farm would
soak into the
injury, ease the
knot of memory,
unname the site
of harm. If there
could be one day
—one hour – of jubilee
how many lame
would walk their property.

Shift
Words have loyalties
to so much
we don’t control.
Each word we write
rights itself
according to poles
we can’t see; think of
magnetic compulsion
or an equal stringency.
It’s hard for us
to imagine how small
a part we play in
holding up the tall
spires we believe
our minds erect.
Then North shifts,
buildings shear,
and we suspect.

Spiderweb
From other
angles the
fibers look
fragile, but
not from the
spider’s, always
hauling coarse
ropes, hitching
lines to the
best posts
possible. It’s
heavy work
everyplace,
fighting sag,
winching up
give. It
isn’t ever
delicate
to live.