Temple of Lies by Dana Curtis


 
 
I’ve finally found the river,
the one where my enemies
will never float by, where
the fish stay silent and the birds
keep to themselves. Every feather is
just a feather. The séance
is over. The tarot turns up
blank as in a magic trick.
I wash all the windows and
shut every door. I won’t be
seeing you again. The light
illuminates the basic facts, and
I pull the blanket off the bed
just to find my latest
parallel universe: this is the dead
beauty in my hands, disreputable
and melancholy. I pretend
nothing is connected, no single
human can ever see into
what the world has always known:
I’m on my back in the water
while the fish and birds play each other’s
tambourines in the night.
 
 
 
Dana Curtis’ third full-length collection of poetry, Wave Particle Duality, was recently published by blazeVOX Books. Her second collection, Camera Stellata, was published by CW Books, and her first book, The Body’s Response to Famine, won the Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in such publications as Hotel Amerika, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, and Prairie Schooner. She has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Elixir Press and lives in Denver Colorado.