Two by
Joel Chace
A Once
If only a just
once, just an even
hunch, ounce for the
nonce. Despite her self and
singsong, mercy’s long
reach leads her past
geese on her lawn, ripples in
the sand and in the beyond
water that lifts and pulls her
farther into a current of
words, language. Not singsong, but song.
A
Province
Where America’s
tin, and they skip
the previews. Union
members leave for
space, after saying,
You’ve done for me, what?
Where her blues are wider
than his, and there’s much more
room underground.
America’s tin with a
hard right cross. High wire doesn’t
work today: rolling abyss,
frozen pipes. Conference of
ailments: breakfast clowns,
evangelicals, several
dissonant strangers, a rural
red monstrosity, and
a profligate crooner, neat
as a suntan. Low sky
and light bones. They all
prefer the unruled, so
they make irony zones, liquid
rosaries, black pebble-circles,
impertinent woes,
seduction contracts, unlikely
proteins, and stairways to
the stars, of course. Nonetheless,
the march always ends their
featured gambit, though the
staunchest citizens, with
fistfuls of disclosures, still
flee to lawns in the wee
small hours. They clear
the way for fountains,
spread plausible nets under
the gargoyle’s scales, and keep
the tome fires burning.
Curious how their gazes
turn upward into
uncontested night, into an
inaudible rush.
O, iota of home. O,
flickering exit
lights. O, kindling on
the chair, rifle on the
knee. O, one way
left. O, hard time dusk. O,
great adagio, bruised
rubato, snow falling
against pines, underrated
province, headlong reverie,
firmament of all their eyes.
Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as Tip of the Knife, E·ratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word and Golden Handcuffs Review. Most recent collections include Humors from Paloma Press, Threnodies from Moria Books, and fata morgana from Unlikely Books.