The 2River View 23.2 (Winter 2019)
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Douglas Nordfors

 
Detail Study

I’ve been reduced to life, specifically
to a human shape
worn down,
and now
I can say I want
to watch the sun like a hawk or a falcon or an astronomer
wavering, unbidden,
toward solar shores breaking the system
of waves
of light,

an astronomer
with ten or five bare
fingers treading the steps
of the air like a doctor or a lawyer or a carpenter,
welcome only
to the initial pinnacle of the sky,
as a falcon,
like a telescope removing itself
from an eye, turns back, trying to decide
who I’ve become,

and settles on
my gloved wrist.

 
Prime Dream

For months, I haven’t seen a sunset.
For months, I’ve seen the sun
begin to fall. A horizon
hovers over this womb
with its nine moons
orbiting around
eight fingernails, mine
if the sun sees me
sink or swoon.

I know, already, what it means to ascend
depleted into
being and
nonbeing. Rubbing into, just
that simple idea,
engenders salt water and cracked lips,
yet simply slipping
on a patch of ice presupposes caution,
the motion of evasion.

This womb must go down past the depth
from which it rose,
and if I desire to see, within
the sun’s cycle,
a rose
or a cyclamen,
this womb
must go without me.
 

Douglas Nordfors has published two books of poetry: Auras (2008), and The Fate Motif (2013), both with Plain View Press. Recent journal publications include Burnside Review, Chariton Review, The Hollins Critic, and The Louisville Review.

 
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