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Newspaper Photograph
Beneath a lukewarm wash of September stars
three men and a woman sit
on volcanic rock
and look toward Mexico.
Some have scopes, but one man
has an eye pressed to the sight
of a high-powered rifle.
This is the struggle
to control the night;
the owl against the lizard, the jaguar
feeling for a foothold
on his native land, the fox
who sees in the dark, and the marksman
with a poor man’s heart
beating in the cross-hairs.
Hokusai
The world has disappeared
and a lady walks through moonlight
placing her right foot
firmly where the ground would have been
while her left foot trails
as weightlessly as if
she left it hanging over
the edge of a cliff
if cliffs existed. But this is moonlight
not rock.
This is someone crumpled
so deeply into the folds
of her kimono
she almost disappeared. The pale
circle above
is inhaling her. Why else
would she curve as she does
and step with no sense
of direction? It is
the golden season;
wine is served, bones
bend to the body’s will.
She has folded her arms,
knitted her fingers
together, tilted her gaze
as melancholics do
when they know
how a leaf feels
when it floats
as if falling
would be its forever.
David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in England, and spent several
years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. He enjoys listening to very old music, birding,
and hiking in the Arizona landscape. Along with poems in magazines, he has a list of chapbook
publications with Places You Can’t Reach (Pudding House Publications, 2006) being the latest,
and recent books: A Normal Day Amazes Us (Kings Estate Press, 2003), Return to Waking Life
(Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2004), and Waiting for the Quetzal (March Street Press, 2006).
Email: David Chorlton
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