Out of Body
Devon Walker-Domine
How is it only last
winter we breathed in the unspeakable immutable
more detail than thought
how the pupil of her portrait seemed to hold
the scene unmade
bed grains of eye shadow fading on the sheets
we could only think
of moths how they tremble
their scales into dirt we could only see
what outlived ownership the face
the painter failed to capture the consequential
stain un-lifted from the carpet dark
mist of breath shape of dampened being-
in-the-world-of-the-world shape of gone yet still
the windmill quilt lying rumpled as though ready to be
pulled over a body what grows too quickly cold
is gathered in anamnesis and am is
ready to be driven into any eye until no ray of light will
hell-bend into simulacra of here of this
breath forever echoing itself
like the quilt that keeps keeping its hand-me-down
geometries
until the details drop like millstones
from the throats of the living only
to be re-fastened to heft how
quickly winter’s rotation away from itself re-
minds us what remains
stitched in the image of eternal synchrony camphoric
collisionless
until the moths learn their young can feed on anything
they can dissolve in their mouths
(even the sturdiest articles, even
their heirloom blades) can grow
bones of paper skins of dust eyes unblinking
and illegible always in the patterns of flight
Devon Walker-Domine is a professional-ballet-dancer-turned-poet. She lives in Iowa City, IA, where she serves as poetry editor for The Iowa Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Permafrost, The Silo and Kitsch Magazine.
