Alix Anne Shaw

I could not hear the other side / the other side could not hear me

The body runs its applets

as apples shyly glow
thunking

through the dusk beneath the trees

so, too, there is a gear in us
nimbly clicking

in foreshortened air

I hear the arc and whirr of it
ratcheting the nil

the empty shaft—

meantime, the river stretches out
the single silver fiber that it is

and the body with its silver threads

halflit in the armchair (lavender or
avocado green)

flickers, intermittent
attempting to connect

with something it could wish for


arcsine
───
archive

secant
───
e-cig

tangent
───
grassquit

as the river snarking past the house
fidgets with its lake

its dirty bank—

If only I had been
some other kind of self

if / then
would you skype me

until I sky myself

because this dark is a variant
of every other dark

a spindle of intent that I must nightly choose to wind

Alix is shown, the left side of the face and shoulders, lying upon brown and yellow leaf litter. Alix has pale skin, and red or auburn hair of several inches length. Alix wears narrow oblong glasses with black frames, a red collared shirt, and a mint green hooded jacket.

Alix Anne Shaw is the author of three poetry collections: Rough Ground (Etruscan, 2018), Dido in Winter (Persea, 2014), and Undertow (Persea, 2007), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize. Her work appears in Harvard Review, Fence, Denver Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, New American Writing, and online at www.alixanneshaw.com. She is also a sculptor.

 

 BACK TO ISSUE

 BACK TO FOLIO