A New Rune

We had known for some time 

The moon shone too bright

And undivulged

As vampires we avoided the day

We could have welcomed the bat 

In the eves

We had the wrong fear

A caterpillar choked the trees

We moved our stocks

I carried a vial to toast the dead

You hurried home when you figured

It was time

We hadn't a clue about the next 

President the last president 

Put his dog to sleep

A cat wandered in an alley

There was no season 

of grief

The Times drew up

A reasonable tableau

We agreed someone should ask 

The holdings held

The question broke

The war moved

Into a new rune

And underwater 

hibiscus bloomed

​​

​​

​

Icosahedron

​

Today we walk just to the edge
Of your capillary waves

​

We measure increments
Of tide

​

Undone in weightless
Bobbing

​

We sort

Living from dead. 

The living to return
And the dead to collect

​

Welcome, sacred shape
Welcome edges, welcome faces

​

Let me be as well
Defined and as boundless

​

So that I too may be home
To 3 million shipwrecks

​

Let these artifacts rest
In absolute dark

​

With shapes cut in lines of light
Across impossible stone

​

Here we surrender an endless quest
To know the underbelly of the fish

​

A swishing of dark shapes
A darker dark

​

Where pieces of that dark
Swish and sway

​

A way is there
That undoes weight

And at a beachside place
Some late daylight

Suggesting grease
And cozy rot

Our bodies will dig flowers

Into parking lots

​​

​​

​​

Wall Drawing 797 by Sol Lewitt

At the end of the season

Once the rot is manifest

And the lids no longer fit 

Snugly in their clefts

My child addresses 

The jack-o’-lanterns

Kissing them and saying goodbye, 

Goodbye pumpkins.

As a world-wise human

I have options for sending love

Or expressing loss, mostly rectangular

Or in the shape of a heart.

What after all does it mean to send

And does it help—all this positional 

All this directional—

Where is the line?

I send you nothing
Questioning edges, yeah,  

But still too preciously drawn

To what’s contained. 

All week, wind warnings and watches 

And someone’s polyester play tunnel 

Forgetting through the yard

Lodging behind a smokebush

That doesn’t belong to me

And the branches too are going 

Almost anywhere as they’re wholly

Unconcerned with property deeds. 

Seeking a present participle just now 

I see that what seems erratic 

Or senseless is really

Only ever other

And if there is a way 

To commune 

With the pumpkin 

It is this:

Redraw the line until 

Its definition snows 

Until it shows
Blossoming in its undulations

Beth Ayer is a poet and co-founder/editor of Collider, a poetry journal. Her work includes a chapbook, Limping to the Big Bad (above/ground press). Her poems have appeared in Apartment Poetry, jubilat, the Ocean State Review, Sixth Finch and Two Serious Ladies.

<<PREVIOUS

NEXT>>