Peter Jay Shippy

Nocturne



ONE

It’s winter. Late morning. So already
too dark to see beyond your red mittens.

I feel like mushroom soup. Our truffling pig
is gone, drafted. He’s the brave sort.

But his absence can’t tamp my urge—
it upsurges into an itch that inkles

into a full-blown craving. Cabin fever?
I close my eyes and listen to the blizzard.

Like a child in a trance swimming laps.
Your toy drum beats. We agree that finding

mature shitakes alone together
in a black whiteout might be exacting.

So we hold hands and play Parcheesi
and wait for the season to retreat.


TWO

It’s a warm, spring nightfall. As we walk
the village, we dream of coming blockbusters.

Buzz grows like smoke. Everyone is out
with their family or a happy dog

or listening devices. The firing squad
practices in the Commons. We haven’t

executed our ne’er-do-wells
in a hundred years, so the team peddles

giant tricycles in parades and pageants
across the Commonwealth. Their figure eights

make us hungry for soft pretzels
and hot mustard. You scribble that down.

But when the skies burst our plans wash away.
Like a child in a trance swimming laps.


THREE

It’s summer. Twilight. But still we’re against
the dustsheet of dazzling sunshine.

You hang your dress on the clothesline between
the macaw and a pair of white boxers.

The heat lightning swarms like lost wishes.
You pin your red bra to a swell of hawthorn

on the rose trestle. Your skin wells-up
with brown earth. I watch from my bathysphere.

Like a child in a trance swimming laps.
You put a bare foot in the kiddy pool

and kick-up some water. The last out
turns off my radio. I do so little

for my black bread. You strip off my crust
as the sad bird sings a bit from Tosca.


FOUR

In late October our pig returns
from the war. On Halloween he dresses

as Toshirô Mifune in Yojimbo.
Our neighbors do their best to make him feel

right at home. His pail fills with candied pears,
chocolate bars, and razorless cookies.

But he can’t escape his sad travails.
For him, will it always be fall

in a white desert? He’s forlorn.
Like a child in a trance swimming laps.

In the service he was employed
as a bomb-sniffer. What can we say? Then

out of the blue he breaks, screaming for joy.
Landmine? Mushroom? We can hardly wait.


FIVE

We awake, shivering. It’s January.
I light a fire and steep green tea while you

read off your to-do, listed in squid ink
across your arm. I feel the ague coming on.

Like a child in a trance swimming laps.
You say, We’re lined-up to slay Bartók

and then play hockey. But I sense a spat
of the vagues oozing through my poor bones.

Especially the little ones in my ears.
How can I ably skate and hammer

with waiting-room legs? I beg you to phone
our regrets but you toss me a goalie’s mask

and gong as my awful brother, the sun
roils his weak eyes and sticks out his blue tongue.


SIX

When spring arrives it’s already May.
You sleep. I sit in our bay window’s recess.

The glass is wonky so its scope looks
decaffeinated. The street we live on

can’t see the message for the bottle.
Like a child in a trance swimming laps.

I watch a harbinger attach its red tail
to our statue of Saint Anonymous.

The macaw scats words over Satie.
I read your skin. We have reservations

at the Motel Café. I use Q-tips
and Vernors to dissolve the glue from your lids.

Breaking hibernation is no lark, not
unlike sewing suits of armor in the dark.


SEVEN

Like a child in a trance swimming laps.
It’s night, of course. Naturally, summer.

The baseball game is in the 17th inning.
The teams trade uniforms. You and I

swap popcorn for tarts. The crowd is between
annihilated and indivisible.

The pennants are learning to flap. Soon
they will migrate from green to red and brown

and fall through the air, changing to leaves
before they hit the ground. Our bunts are dragging.

It’s early September, but late
in the race. We borrow trikes and ride home

and mummy into our red sheets, falling
fast asleep as a pig sings Ives to his bird.










A Spot of Rain



That happened when most people still believed
that the universe was hyperbolic. Years later

the footage was recovered by a drone spacecraft.
Better an empty sky than no sky, people joked

that the universe was hyperbolic. Years later
I was in charge of ramming sport’s cars into buildings.

Better an empty sky than no sky. People joked
at first, as people will, but then real pain set up shop.

I was in charge of removing cars from buildings.
Our psycho-geographers suggested algebra

at first, as people will, but then real pain set up shop.
The new flag had an hourglass and a trident.

Our psycho-geographers suggested algebra
was tipping the flute. Feel the ice on your teeth?

The new flag had an hourglass and a trident.
Shot sequence junkies said that the eye of Ra

was tipping the flute. Feel the ice on your teeth?
I crossed Antarctica in a Karmann Ghia.

Shot sequence junkies said that a slice of Ra
zapped the fleet and turned ravens snow white.

I crossed Antarctica in a Karmann Ghia
carrying a thermos of the same martinis that

zapped the fleet and turned ravens snow white.
“Nothing in the stars burns like rotting art-deco.”

Carrying a thermos of the same martinis that
my Grandmother learned to concoct in the convent.

(“Nothing in the stars burns like rotting art-deco”)
we watched the old hotel go up in smoke.

My Grandmother learned to concoct in the convent
school in New Wales. “We learned the Abraham Waltz,

we watched the odd hotel go up in smoke—
for nights just like this.” She took my hand and we danced.

School? In New Wales? “We learned the Lincoln Screw
for wanton twisting and the Horsey Set Minuet

for nights just like this.” She took my hand and we danced
as shock waves spread at supersonic velocities.

For wanton twisting and the Horsey Set Minuet
a hemisphere is good, to reflect the pressure

as shock waves spread at supersonic velocities
the nocturnal exterminated the diurnal.

A hemisphere is good, to reflect the pressure
that happened when most people still believed

the nocturnal exterminated the diurnal.
The footage was recovered by a drone spacecraft.









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