No One Knows
There, the dream of flying
cars, and the next,
tumbling through soft
glass, inconsiderate and
hopeful as a child
on his birthday,
hands outstretched, waiting.
Unsmiling. You might ask
where this story turns,
whether the glass reconstitutes
or the car crashes,
reminders of a childhood
reconsidered and the simplest
truth, which is no one knows.
“No One Knows” was first published in The Pangolin Review in March 2018.
Agave
It might deceive.
Or like a cruel
window, live its life
unopened,
offering a view
yet reserving the taste
for another’s
tongue, ignoring
even the wind.
The roots, as always, look down.
* * *
This first appeared in Ijagun Poetry Journal in December 2013, was featured in poems2go in April 2016, and is also included in my micro-chapbook, You Break What Falls, available for download from the Origami Poems Project: http://www.origamipoems.com/poets/236-robert-okaji
Knots
Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s
sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through
and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste
at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this
doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,
twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.
“Knots” first appeared here in June 2016.
The Politics of Doors
With every doorway, decisions.
Accept, deny. Turn.
How to resist the ajar,
the barely closed?
Is what emerges
expelled or escaped,
free or released?
Resistant as always,
I swivel,
pause to inhale.
This first appeared in 1988, in Aileron. At the time I was experimenting with movement and breath and line, and wrote quite a few of these meditations in this form, some more successful than others.
* * *
where breath begins
it ends consider
light its secret
structure the sense
of limit defined
if a hand
recalls what the
eye cannot which
is the source
of remembrance one
touches more deeply
or allows itself
to be touched
a difference only
in the approach
Self-Portrait as Wave
Feeling limited, I succumb to surge,
disperse, reassemble, return
in the calming swirl. Nothing
resembles me. I relinquish this piece,
retain that, and reinforced,
reside in the whorl, swollen,
winnowed to a point and capped,
roar and rumble, shredded,
whole yet apart, a solitary
fist crashing through another
watery torso in response, in
resonance, again, again.
“Self-Portrait as Wave” was first published in the inaugural issue of Kissing Dynamite. Many thanks to editor Christine Taylor for taking this piece.
Trains
1
In the marrowbone of night,
your song parts the fog.
I never knew the secrets entrusted there.
I never knew that cinders and steel
could lie so passionately
and still believe that the watchman’s hours
would evaporate and leave us scratching for more.
I have stolen time.
The windows remain closed and shuttered.
Even the wind turns away.
The track narrows.
You call.
Again.
2
Sometimes song seems the only respite,
the rhythm of clashing cars
and moments stretched beyond the next bend
to that point where light winks out.
We both know this lonely tunnel.
Payment is due.
I have always exited alone.
3
Another evening, and red smoke completes the horizon.
Your ribs stretch for distance,
and while I cannot see their end,
I know by sound
their lot.
Sing for me.
It is not
too close.
“Trains” was originally published in Lightning’d Press (Issue 8) in Spring of 2014, was reprinted on Aubade Rising in April, 2015, and has appeared here several times. It is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
Landscape with Jar
(after Wallace Stevens)
What vanishes more readily than the breakable
and transparent? Not here, not now, it says,
never voluble in the morning. I have work.
The horizon exists simply in perception.
Try to touch it – the hill meets the sky
only from afar, offering discordance
up close, no measurement possible.
And among the trees and vines, a glimmer
of spite, twisted open. Moving closer, we see
through. We see rocks, a bird. We see air.
“Landscape with Jar” was first published in Birch Gang Review in July 2017.
Inscrutable
The river fills her body
like handwriting on a scrap
folded into a book
and found years later.
No one reads that language.
Undiscovered,
she remains closed, cleansed,
awaiting interpretation.
* * *
“Inscrutable” was first published in Volume 3, Issue 1 of Ink in Thirds. Thank you, Grace Black, for taking this piece!
Some Answers You Never Considered
At the cusp of night, before the sun steams out in the ocean,
and blues abandon the reds.
Nothing rests at the core of zero.
Cerulean blue was first marketed as coerulium.
What we consider sky includes only its lowest reaches.
Even considering a dense history with kites, I humbly concede,
and admit sacrifice as atonement, with grace.
No. I say it again. No.
Your visual system constructs the colors you see.
Only when the wind unbuttons its greatcoat, or at the tip
of an icicle, just before the drop catches itself.
Release the line and know the freedom of loss.
Transparent yet wide, unfolded like a fist freeing
a swarm of bees into honeyed air, it contains us.
Your inability to see it does not refute the horizon’s base.
If I knew I’d tell you.
* * *
“Some Answers You Never Considered” first appeared in Underfoot in October 2017.
O at the Edges 