Cover

Note to Reader

Note to the Reader

Copper Canyon Press encourages you to calibrate your settings by using the line of characters below, which optimizes the line length and character size:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque eui

Please take the time to adjust the size of the text on your viewer so that the line of characters above appears on one line, if possible.

When this text appears on one line on your device, the resulting settings will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text on the page and the line length intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accommodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems will be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the turn of the line will be marked with a shallow indent.

Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.

This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

Dedication

FOR MY FRIENDS

You think you do well to hide the little things in the big ones—but what if you were to hide the world in the world?

Chuang Tzu

We are truly ourselves only when we coincide with nothing, not even ourselves.

E.M. Cioran

I

I

Murano

MURANO

It is not miraculous. Only a handful of silica, fire,

and then the blower twirls another knob of gold

on his metal pontil, dipping the tip into a pot

inlaid with spikes to make the burning globe

twist in upon itself as the man breathes out

and a thin neck bulges, wreathes into a spiral

like a unicorn horn; but we’re bored, he’s

bored, blowing and blowing the same shape over.

It takes no effort. He stares off through one

of the factory windows as he does it, beneath a sign,

No Flash, a red line drawn through a cartoon camera

to indicate the work is private, dangerous.

The man’s tongs pinch out a chest, a neck, the crowd

applauding each development though it has seen

the same thing around the corner.

We know what will come next. The man

reaches into the bright elastic to yank

a fat neck forward, to pinch out hair, a shovel-

shaped face; to pull out one thin, bent leg

and then another, the glass itself now tinged with ash

as the fire runs out of it, dimming to topaz,

caramel. He splashes water on the irons

to make them smoke. It must be dangerous, this

material, or why else would we watch?

The blower has a bald patch, earrings, scars.

He dips his tongs once more into the figure

and out come back legs, a tail. The neck twists