A Thousand Words by Dara Wier
An appendix, four wisdom teeth, tonsils: In case one journeys into chasms without doctors It will just make things simpler in the future You will appreciate ice cubes more (29) A public scandal, a private investigation, no clue: It rocks foundations upon which sleepiness naps How to find a way to appear to not be asking questions No, ask no questions, no, ask magnificent questions For whose answers there won't be anything anyone Anticipated much less imagined (76) Something tonic for the fugue, automatic for the Anatomic organic parapardise paraparallel annexes, Unbony for knees, like socks fit a rooster like they Say in the boonies to start the anagogic ceremonies, Please, baby, please turn the allergorical fires down By a few degrees, the head on my hair's beginning To burn (128) And there's no Need to get down on All fours Gruesome Reasons though there Are Needing picking up off the floor? (150) I liked to watch them changing horses in midstream At dusk, in autumn, after leaves no longer allemanded At midnight, in moonlight, in untinted movies, In an unheated room, under chilly white flowers, Lamia all over the map was what Heidelberg said, Denizens widespread, bevels everywhere, fast- Breaking fascicles & a prayer for equilibrium, (204) They bent their brows up and down over the true-blue Palimpsest water troughs where their fathers and Their mothers had left them little love notes: (228) Be good to the wolves There's something behind the stones, back of the Stove We're sorry we called the malarial marsh The Vale Of Health We're sorry we couldn't afford to keep the horse Watch out for anything called a long leash We put some things aside, in the tin box, in the Leather case, behind the radiator And check between the drive shaft & the muffler (295) I remember you with wind all over your face I remember you with snow all over your nose I remember what your puzzled look wouldn't let on I remember your comb I remember fourscore places you signed your name I remember two different handwritings you used I remember the coat you threw off of a cliff I remember the colors your couldn't see I remember our initials on a roadside table (366) Once you dove into the lake in the middle of the night And you were gone so long we thought you were never Coming back We were questioning the motives of the motives And had to slap oursleves to get over it and Get it over with (413) An edict: make a run for it Someone decided that hall of the sports teams Would be required to give us back our colors One by one in tiptop condition Several ceremonies involved dove release activity The birds aren't actually given a choice I don't know where they go The photographic record's drama is heightened Smart, as a whip, sharp as a tack (476) It was a given They'd look immediately into the closet They were warned not to open Without fail a dream entomologist bursts into My dreams to collect insects of various kinds And then he leaves and the dream goes on (516) Some of them countenanced an unacceptably Rational relationship with mortality Some of us freaked out over it So we had a few screws loose but we were all there We didn't get rabid about it When we hallucinated we hallucinated as one (557) I remember you with your head thrown back, with Burning leaves making you laugh I remember you under a live oak holding a glass I remember what mattered in your palace of memory I remember what happened to the soles of your shoes You were the one who taught me every last hydraulic Thing (611) The dog brown fox jumped quick over the lazy The the Once in a A laminated blue moon Nobody stopped me from writing two names on Paper slips and throwing them into a fire (644) Nobody told me to leave the suitcases alone You know what they say where we live, if you don't Like the buzzwords stick around, get out of the Kitchen Anti-cloning indexes were off the charts those Days As if As luck would have it As if who knew As soon as we have half a chance (700) As this time, more than ever, in countless ways I'm sorry I put a locket in my shoe and let a Sailor steal it I'm sorry I lied about where I lost my wallet I'm sorry every last text isn't sacred (741) It was good sleeping on a pallet overnight in The open air in the market I liked it when I couldn't figure from where the Music was coming It was good sweeping a sidewalk at 5 in the morning Just as rain showers stopped (785) Who was it you wanted to see one last time Which was the one they cut out of the picture What's the name of that little town in the Pyrenees We were fired up for a good illusion (822) We had sometimes driven one another mad On the other hand Sometimes we drove one another on missions of Mercy I meant what I said when I paused over our being At the mercy of a chemistry of infinite numbers But you know I don't know what I mean (871) Let's talk about the butterfly with crimson red Expandable wings, eight of them I liked watching a boy try on clothes he knew No longer fit him (898) I remember a grown man so small he broke the Mold Is the one-legged bird lucky to be alive One of them asked what made words flying out Of a mouth make sense (931) One of them had painted blue numbers on a black Mailbox One of them had driven straight into a fence In daylight, cold sober, uncomprehending In the picture a soldier is dreaming in chron- Ological order of all of our previous wars In the picture seven forces are meeting at the Crossroads in broad daylight Some the churches wouldn't have were buried at The crossroad as if it would (1000)
— Dara Wier (Remnants of Hannah, 2006)