from The Great Work

37.

It’s nothing! Just a bit
Of imperious light kicking in
The window and running its hands
Over our things—my pile of change,
Your collection of bottle caps.
The cat, fully resplendent now
In proper halo. Only the clock
Not cooperating, hands all fiddly,
Working evil in plain day.

44.

What can be observed
By a lantern floating 
Like a river ghost?
Revenge for illumination,
Beer for breakfast.
A calculus that allows
A host of decisions to sprout,
Cracking the gravel and making
The strange road stranger,
In danger fully itself.

51.

Cracked, cleft, and powdered.
Many milligrams portioned off
And sold to the different districts
Of a body in distress. First,
There was an ache, then an echo,
Then a long conversation between
Old friends, each straining for
A taste of summer in the ash.

64.

Daylight is terrible!
Moonlight is worse!
Let us see nothing,
Minds at peace,
Elbows at odds with
A sea of table corners.
I’d rather sleep
And keep sleeping,
Judge and keep judging,
Burn a hole into the center
Of the sky, climb through,
Solder it shut behind me.

73.

Where is the transformation
Promised in the secret bylaws
Of the woods, wherein we sleep
And our natures are rearranged?
A wing will take us higher,
But never enough to glimpse
The world hidden above the clouds
Or below the dirt, or below that
In hell’s raucous, bleeding halls.

95.

Inside each bafflement
Is a kernel of sad understanding:
The silver of it all, what it is
To see the sunflowers open
And close, marking the end
Of this day’s deliberations,
The summer having declared
A mistrial: what can you do but
Start again, start again?

Andrew McAlpine is a writer and game designer living in Northampton, MA. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks The Volunteer and My Utmost Devotion. He runs Phantom Mill Games with Jedediah Berry.