Two Thefts for Beauty
Jacob Fricke
I. From the Vault
The illogic heat of that July night, the
throat of the opera-house open, clam-
ivory against gold of brick, thrown wide to
the oven-door city. And that song –
some stray cause undulating –
some old conviction meandering –
saulting its steps through a dissonant
dark, booming at gold and clanging through
moonlight, thrumming as sunrise in
the string of the wind, growling louder and louder in
mantic harmony, whirling momentum and giant
grace in a madcap careening of clarity –
An albatross winging for its life.
II. Stray Flowers
Double-dutch of carnival color by the auto zone,
Slipped in there somehow down on the five-mile tarstrip,
Laughs of pure sun-shot vaulting on clownleg stilts of jungle jade
Tumbling sixteen feet of summer through the egg-stink of engine oil –
Just bearing witness by the laundry dust,
Just speaking the truth to powder,
Another hallelujah by the tire-heap.