by Nathaniel Dolton–Thornton

AETHER /OAR

There is a Great Year, whose winter is a great flood and whose summer is a world conflagration. In these alternating periods the world is now going up in flames, now turning to water.

— Heraclitus, On Nature

winter XXXXVI

though I don’t like chitchat
I’ve talked my own ear off

so I know nobody’s listening when I step outside
the road dead– ends at a trail

to a beach that ends in all directions
(the stones walk underwater)

our troubles, like ice cream, melt in sun
and stick around

by Dan Raphael

my house is moving like a train
exiting this city, rising into clouds

everything around me so tall
when i look up i only see more.
my spine can now bend almost 180 degrees
the back of my head brushing my calves
but everything’s still up–side up

the music leaving my mouth
ripples in circles like water a stone fell in
but i didn’t see or hear anything plop.
is the music from something that fell into my inside.
the horizons are the edges of my body seen from within
how my mind translates body parts
into mountains, lakes and a distant city

i do not have to leave to travel
channels changing seamlessly
i’ve grown beyond the need for transitions

by Dan Raphael

an owl inside myself
cold in the marrow of clawed flight
by the heat, the hunger, how grass sings
what won’t be snapped by this light
falling through ground, skinned by time
speed o flight, shades of balance
through a door or window or what’s not here yet

the milieu of to go, non–stop, slow trickle
of fuel like backwards rain, a sliver of aligning
cursive circumstance smoothing round a bevel
of conic perturbation, as we close in on
where the “welcome to” sign’s population never wavers

sleeves reversed unstained, delivered to this address
a concatenation of numbers, the satellite of having been before
orbit no one, keep nothing from finding its rest
levels full above and below, everyone else is taken

more wing than body, more hunger than wing
always a little night stashed in me
allergic to sunrise, immune to dusk
fewer windowsills to perch on
this city–wide menu, sometimes gathering up
whatever nears first, sometimes the easy targets
trailing the herd

doors like wings, like screw top lids
doors that open for hallucinations
mirrors projecting what 1 don’t want behind me
knocking on air, a dial tone I’ve never heard
from inside the wall reaching through the roof
hollow as a toaster, coils of dust and orange news print,
pre–interstate roadmaps with several blank spaces circled
reaching from the flat page to keep me from turning it
scratching states like lottery tickets, pasta

pretending to be streets, green stubble
too lost to land on
the smallest get to dig first, climbing the food ladder
from below the ground to within the sky
from stomata to stomachs to rivers as sporadic as
a clock with seven hands, I take 3 steps back and lose an hour
I draw the black curtain stained with constellations
with no visible source of power

the face behind the hair on the back of my head
as my bald dome goes from new to full in ways I can’t depend on
remembering to feed my itches, moisten my seeds,
entertain sudden ideas and let sleeping resentments
not take wing, silent when hungry, radiant with need

by Dan Raphael

doors open out, close in
windows open up, close down
jars open clockwise, close counter

I choose the right key to unlock the kitchen door
90% of the time, the other nearly identical key
is for someone else’s house.
I don’t have a key for my front door
the garage door hasn’t come down since we got here

that time I put my key in the passenger door
opened it, and realized it wasn’t my Subaru
now as long as the key’s in your pocket or purse
doesn’t matter who you are

some homes in Chile (& elsewhere) are built on stilts
when a couple splits up, often one person gets the land
the other gets the house and moves it

could you build a house under an existing house
a house inside a house, a house without foundation or flooring

looked so hard in the living room window
I heard it sigh, no doors, no house number
I couldn’t see past the lawn