from distinctions

 

What range of tones are possible

in the phrase See for yourself?

Sarah Gridley, Loom

*

Expand, to widen. Borrowed hours, function. Blazing heat.

Perhaps, we stay awake. We know: the summer still of discon-

tent. Excessive: rooms we can’t yet leave. Her kingdom for a

working AC unit. Cool down, some. She swims the mornings.

Sixteen weeks: we measure eyelids, ears, the length.

Shifting eyes to front. A habit of apples. The white flesh of page. The

moorings. Rush, a second time. Starfish sing. Nuance, of tiny

boats. A tin ear.

*

A small discretion, slight. Exactitudes. This question still of

luck. Adrift. Spread out, across. To pre-exist. A stubble, roughly

nine months. Dailyness. The pattern, of little feet. A landscape

of pretending. Stacked boxes, letters. We write in colour, songs

of lightening. A dedicated commons. Shadow. The desire of

mothers. Certainty: the handle of an axe, a hammer. Vowel-

thin and unaligned. A spider’s web of chance.