October Dusk

By Arthur SzeOctober 6, 2019

October Dusk
This piece appears in the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal: Imitation, No. 23

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October Dusk


Aspen leaves and blue spruce needles dissolve

in the dusk; looking through glass panes,

you suddenly see ceiling lights, a Bolivian

textile on a wall: when what’s behind becomes

what’s in front, you wince, draw circles,

and, deepening the graphite tracks on a page,

enact a noose; then a sliver of moon

in the sky’s a sickle; a twig fire crackles

at your feet; you whistle, ache, mar, step

out of a car to find bits of shattered glass

on asphalt resemble the ends of dreams;

as you flip bottles into a recycling bin,

each glass shatters: each dream collapses

into a pile of shards; as you toss the last

glass into the bin, you step out of another

transparent confine; and, as moonlight makes

a road on water, you have no word for

this moment that rides a wave stilling all waves.

 
¤

 

LARB Contributor

Arthur Sze has published ten books of poetry, including, most recently, Sight Lines (Copper Canyon, 2019). His other books include Compass Rose, The Ginkgo Light, Quipu, and The Redshifting Web. He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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