Three Poems

Devi Lockwood

architecture of noon // diagonal bricks

I want to peel

the idea of angles

from my body

like the skin

of an overripe peach

if I fix-hold my eyes close enough to the surface I can see through

That world is much the same as ours,

but every texture glistens, even the light,

a topography of possible textures

to move with no sense of what might fit

or not fit along the surface of the body I have.

To be permeable. To be a record of color.

If I rip & tear small pieces of the sea

into smaller pieces: coves, seaglass,

an archipelago, if I breathe chaos into

my edges, if I fold my palm into a fist

& stretch my fist into the water’s edge,

then the fabric loosens, is altered, is a place

where my fist has been.

Fluid

Let’s fill the tub of the night

with fish gills, let the water

change from silky cold

to clement.

Across the street a light flutters on,

garbling through the colander

of their shades. A fish in their driveway

takes its last breath.

I dream of jumping repeatedly

into a pool filled with foam cubes.

Shapes that catch, little edges

to hold on to.