THE AFTERLIFE: IN THE SUMMER HOUSE
A scrap of canvas tacked to the kitchen wall
reads, in Russian and English:
AT THE DARK TIME
PULL OUT THE CORD.
A slim arrow points toward
some lost device that shifts now
in a north coast ice pack, or
was crushed and swallowed
by a flock of Arctic terns
and migrates from pole to pole in
thousands of fibers radiating through
food chains: the broken strings
hanging from closet lights. Lines
that raise half a window blind.
—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007
___________
Susanna Mishler: “I write as an act of rebellion against fruit flies, snobbery, and Newton’s 2nd law of motion.”
