Shipwreck, A While Ago

That these subtler parts relate

to one another is, in a way,

natural. If a gull chews a clam,

grazing here, it's only like mud

moving through the ground: only

so many things can happen at once.

The sun that warms them

reflects the clear water.

Should I wish for somebody

to be here and see this with me?

I only have so many wishes.

But somebody has yet to bring or be a shroud

that the clouds forming are the form of.

*

Cricket

It was a game of secret continuities

I watched it edge-on, it went from one man

to the next as though taken for granted

The spaces' shapes, between the men,

weren't shaped like men nor should've been

The shapes moved. One man threw the ball.

I thought somebody else had it, not him

I watched for the place where his outline

gave way, inward to the solid man himself,

the inside of that edge, but I couldn't see it

**

Jon Woodward was born in 1978 in Wichita, Kansas. On the night he was born, a falling star killed the village elder. His first book of poems, Mister Goodbye Easter Island, is forthcoming from Alice James Books.

Archived at http://lit.konundrum.com/poetry/woodj_poems.php