winter and because the light is low and slanting
I cannot tell if coming toward or going away
and am reminded of overlapping splinters
we used to play pickup sticks but these
days what with caffeine and my continual tremor
the memory of your hand high is a chemical
a planetary weight that throws all other experience
out of orbit hard to tell a series of whitewashed
rooms acre giving onto acre as thresholds
accomplished coyotes whine and step delicately
across light tables all around mammalian and
afraid the compass rose adhesive/lifted/
reaffixed on a cold breeze the odor of mineral
spirits the sequence contained within an oxbow
Benjamin Landry’s poetry has appeared in Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly and elsewhere, and he reviews and blogs at benjaminlandry.wordpress.com. His collection Particle and Wave will be published in February as part of the PhoenixPoets Series (Chicago). He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and daughter.