Rustin Larson

Transformation and Sleep


Meet me, she said. A kiss. Light of a gold coin. 
That’s the body’s death. Let all the past be there. 
The past glitters like clothes of a hovering angel, 
a fairy tale, window’s well: oxygen and citron. Light 
of night.  He’d found a song worshipping 
an almost remembered play. These are my words. 
He had been writing along smooth plaster walls. She holds 
this for ages, holding the words, walking past the houses. 
Life was a crumpled letter, hair bound in a braid, 
a raw overwhelming landscape, but for a cascade. 
I didn’t intend the gardens you see as you walk, the darkness
you wrap, curls that pour near your ears to a froth 
of lace. Oranges on a hill near. Sparrows. Grow 
yourself from air. Play on parched grass, simple cart path
paraded by blue flags, honey bees. On her bed, 
mean it; it finds breath committed in a bowl of apples
and apricots spilled, a Persian throw of blue and red, 
where you see her, 5 a.m., the traffic glowing like a false dawn.
I did. Metal insects sliding into song. 
You hear the notes of stars playing the lawns. 
Shake the globe. It’s starlight crumbled to a powder, fallen to earth. 
The night I was dying, night of the population, 
someone’s soul was torn in two— the silver snow
of forgetfulness sparkled in the room. 
The night she (one’s self back from a seed) 
was born, I lay dead. You don't need 
rainfall on transcendental soil. No, let the soil 
light around you. The starlight became my cloak. 




The Sun 


Good days 
you're stuck.  Inside 
it is, with the sun 
  
raining its carnival 
on the other side 
of the windowpane: 
  
orange banners 
and smoldering pits 
of pig, pick- 
  
pocket clowns 
and wide women 
in love with clouds 
  
of sherbet.  No, 
truly, the chairs 
that could lift you 
  
for the ride of your life 
pass the bungee
jumpers and mills 
  
of newly hatched 
ducklings, the sun 
its own balloon, 
  
oh friendly companion, 
the event of its own 
life: dying 
  
to become 
a new day 
for some other 
  
country where 
the children are 
naked and free.

Rustin Larson's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry East, The Atlanta Review, and other magazines. The Wine-Dark House (Blue Light Press, 2009) is his latest collection. Crazy Star, his previous, was selected for the Loess Hills Books Poetry Series in 2005. Larson won 1st Editor's Prize from Rhino Magazine in 2000 and has won prizes for his poetry from The National Poet Hunt and The Chester H. Jones Foundation.