Lightsey Darst

Center

i.

Come back to the center,
advertises the flyer, we must all
come back to the center at last.
But in an expanding universe

there is no center, at
the beginning of things no
distance, but all one point, not
a place in space but the only, the

suck & kiss of us on top, under, next

to us—and now what was that nexus grinds
every place, center in all
corners, so that

you come back to the center every time you touch your face.

ii.

You were my foot and I
was in your eyes. Our hands
formed one dove. Veins
carried blood both to
and from our super-dense hearts,

but they did not carry.
The stars dropped from their own fingertips,

bodies pulled into waves of song.

I heard our voices say no name.

Expats

The distance retreated into the distance, a lake unto itself.

Between the arches we saw elements of an artwork: scope,
plan, a masterful brushstroke about the children in the fountain.
But we sipped tea.

In the corner of that lemon room, a table, oriented
towards eventual discovery, as books left open, shop-doors,
as the sleep in the matinee and the window where a bird alighted.

We disposed of less attractive thoughts.

A family’s children met in the afterglow of three in the plaza,
participated in a danced recreation of the morning’s riot. Yes,
movement had by then happened in the anteroom. A hearse blacked
out the memory of the victim, exile, passed between us and the sun.

And then it struck four and we changed to wine.

about the author