Cover

Title Page

Soft Targets

DEBORAH LANDAU

COPPER CANYON
PRESS

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This e-book edition was created through a special
grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family
Foundation.

Dedication

for Ethan, Julian,
and Miranda

SOFT TARGETS

when it comes to this fleshed neck

when it comes to this fleshed neck

~

When it comes to this fleshed neck
even a finger could do it

even a sharp stick,
a blunt blow, a fall—

my jugular
there’s a soft target

and night is a soft target
all of us within it

Osama shot dead
in his pajamas

and everyone
on the Brooklyn-bound F

as a man removes a bomb
from his bag

a square of chocolate
he detonates in his mouth

there were real officers in the streets

there were real officers in the streets

(Paris)

~

There were real officers in the streets
but they were doing it wrong.

One winked at me, another was purely conceptual,
one thought to himself as I walked by, you little bitch.

Bulge-knobs of their guns made them aural,
made them real big machismo,

even the skinny ones, even the abstract.
A certain beauty in the duty of it.

Meanwhile he was broken, she was concussed,
and we returned home, gilded with what, safety?

In advance of danger
animals agitate.

When the time comes all this
will be only shouts and disturbance.

~

A breath leaves the body and wishes it could return

maybe, the news rich with failure, dither,

terror, the bloated moon in constant charge of us as vapor

and this did frame our constituency

even in our cozy homes, even in a painless state

on the downriver, O oblivion—

sipping champagne as another night brings forth,
dancing its big plan, its damage.
I had a thought but it turned autumn, turned cold.

I had a body, unwearied, vital, despite the funeral in everything—
ample with bodies, covered in graves and gardens, potholes and water,
an ardent river we walked together, a wine and rising breeze.

Much trouble at hand, yet the lilies still.

~