Table of
Contents
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Bull Wall: American Royale, Robert Morris
Have you seen this wall,
steel cut in Kansas City
where bulls stampede
their empty shadows
through two thicknesses
of corten welded at the x?
The ones in front
break with hooves,
ready to gore their two-pronged
crowns if their might
doesn’t tumble them headlong
to somersaults spearing earth flesh
instead of us.
And others pause to look on,
lesser kings in cowboy land
still muscled enough to do the job.
Like us, filled with the fury
of our shadowed history,
horned royalty brought to the prairies
caught in the factory’s metal mural
where the charge goes on.
Sarah Wyman
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Urbana # 6, Richard Diebenkorn
On Diebenkorn’s black carpet,
legless shoes trot past
a waterfall that soaks
the shag with its second cascade
dropping underground, and contours
of the sandy scape create
a desert-wise attempt to tie up
loose odds and ends
while a ship sails by without an ocean
and a purple sock
could be a cat’s tail flickering.
Hardly a spot to sit and rest
as the yellow burns its square head through
the floor despite red spatters
that cry quietly for help.
Meager attempts to tidy up
the tiled room corner
end in a tilted broom
handle and a dash off to the right:
the green canoe cast out to sea.
Sarah Wyman__
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Braque’s Measurements
Thin fish, an oily layer of paint
on canvas laid upon a dish.
Thick outline in same gray
that drew the plate itself
still downward sliding
by a blue pitcher left out to dry
as units of tactile measurement:
foot, arm’s length, hand’s breadth
hold the memory of the body
that crafted it, identical
span between fingers,
knuckled segments to scale
the reach into a dimension
where fish float, where fork and moon
perfectly match as silver flattens
into ornament not instrument
of illumination or ingestion,
just a well-tined plunge
through darkness
to the shaved side of a mullet
beached upon a tray.
The carafe’s ready to fill the cups
and your eyes across from mine
fathom the depths below
a table that holds all in place.
Sarah Wyman__
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Fur Skirt
How did she procure
that bunny-fur skirt?
Snatched it right off the rack
as my own fingers closed
on the hanger,
biting the waistband gently,
nails toothing at the belt.
Her hands were faster,
and now it feels like years.
She likely wears it
bounding swift as a snowshoe
through the drifts,
soft ears elongated
pink nose fighting off frost
and velvety tail
burgeoning on her backside
still hidden beneath the pale hide.
Unshaven side inward,
she jumps further when warm
and her whiskers collect
frost as snow falls.
I wish her well, after all.
Relieved of my longing
I can probe the next day’s
desire for heat
and send out my hunter
to bring me back a rabbit’s foot.
Sarah Wyman__
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