January: Cernay, near Rambouillet, by Léon-Germain Pelouse
brine, this is a Bauhaus love affair, and there are foxes now
Brine
snow is coming
so are trucks carrying
glacial tons of salt to season
winter and cure streets
with brine
sifted from brackish deep
magma-heated seafloor seeps
a winnowing of waves, dissolved
ions feeding the feast of seven
Christmas fishes
who crave salinity – cod, mussels
conch and squid – crystals
for scallops and clams
and preventing icy skids
an ocean over asphalt that by dawn
will gnaw and gnash primordial shark
teeth, unleash the thermal sting
of ray and eel and thaw its sister sea
of winter whitecaps
this is a Bauhaus love affair
form
following function, no frothy
flirtation, no rococo romance
just the allure of essentials
show
me your etchings
your Kandinsky-keen slants
your curves and your cants
we align, you and I, all
symmetry
and order, all angles and poise
sleek in efficiency and primal
simplicity, with mattress as
canvas
in abstract attraction we converge,
curated – lip to neck, collarbone
to calf, eye to thigh, straight edge to
sigh
with rule and compass sketch
a schematic of e-zones, Klee edges
and us falling to
plumb
mathematically inspired
the gestalt of desire
this is a Bauhaus
love affair
there are foxes now
we weren’t sure at first, they move so quick
the size of pets or tender prey, and we’re unaccustomed
to the flick of tail and straight-arrow flight – a blur of liquid amber
streaking across yards
or associative memory, the pinball ping
of unrelated things – tattoo of inked feathers, a hatchet
moon swaying in winter sky, the cardinal north quiver
of a silver compass
leading you in the ways of shamans, trailing mystic
wisps of incense, the goatskin beat of bomba drums, the flesh-
and fur-weave of metamorphosis that makes you trust
the beguiling dusk dancer
and then you rouse from imagining and realize
you’ve lost track of the prize, the slyboots ruse of disappearing
into wood with the hint, the glint, the tease of follow me please
and you’re left wondering what it might portend to see
or believe in foxes
January 25, 2025
Further considerations
In Situ
It was there all along: // a knot beneath the skin, // a stranger's tongue in darkness
Hypnotizing Chickens
One Saturday afternoon in the shoulder // season between calving and haying
let us cast lots, and can't we have a lesbian love story where no one dies?
I hate rich people, // my son says, spat // from the belly of the bus // that each day returns him // to dry land
Seeds of Pomegranate
Usually Rafael was called Rafa, but Hope shortened it further to Raf. Some of the other men who worked at the hotel would tease him when they heard this, but Rafael never mentioned it to her. He met her briefly while she worked the day shift during the summer time, when the sun would bleed through the windows and warm her pale face while she stood behind the front desk.