RAUAN KLASSNIK
THREE POEMS
You found her with a bottle of red wine and helped her drain it. And another. And then another. Wires melting. Villages of cool, bright color. In a room widening and brightening a man gets closer and closer——stones, cobwebs, and giant mushrooms blooming. People arrive. Kneel down. And leave.
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You're rising up from the bath and covering yourself with a towel. Sometimes a man sits in a pit with a bunch of strangers. Every morning two or three are taken out and their heads cut off. We're late again. I'm chewing my nails down. Enlightenment's a long glimmering river. In the sun's long red hair. And all its trees. And all its rocks.
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A cracked tooth is nothing. You walk on muttering "Boy that was close." The second kills you, sucked into whirlwinds banging against each other. Like chewing on hard white trash. In a blizzard, once, you saw a truck filled with cattle overturning. It went down on its side, sliding. It was all silver. Like music. As you walked among their bodies. As you touched their heads. As you went down through the pine trees, kicking a rock——in the bright light whistling.