Toni Gary

baptist gates in florence

wall studies
for flexible truths

we don't like bacon,
the poems of Walt Whitman
or sensitiveness in criticism.

“formless”

a) begin listening for melodies
in the pattern of a dress,
a piece of furniture. do the same thing
over and over with different cloth;
lengths of curtain.

b) measure the bodies
of Polyclitus and Lysippus.
compare the same windows,
but omit the repetitions:

the decoration of a room,
a dress,
a poem,
a hint of conflict.

I like the most conspicuous walls.
common types

that sacrifice competition
for the gates of the same,
the same.

Isaac kneeling on a sacred slab
riding on his horse.
Isaac always
on his horse.

Tissue, n. - set (as in lies)

the rotting go missing
then come back
to live in the presence of
a window

and a third ubiety, beating.

smells like, but isn't
a fire in the attic.
smells like

a houseplant,
a leaf smashed to the wall
behind it.

yesterday,
i walked into the woods
and buried a chunk of dry hair
tied in saltwater line,

and there was already
a bent locket
pushed down in the same hole

hearer

ugly walls, doorways
haunted with hands,
huddled unlovely
a sudden burst
of breaking sun
on a fluttering
grey bellie yawning,
finally open.
once-wet papers blow off
in a false wind.
the last breathing ghosts
pitching churchbells
that die-out