MOTION IN A PATH TO MYSELF
I grip the sudden
memory and fade
against the insane
star. I stuff the shapeless
wind with some raw
idea of it and pause
before the opening
gate. I devise the flat
escape and then axe
the wrists of the witness
in me. My hands break
into birdsong sung under
breath. I yield the eye
and turn the ear inside
out for the whispering
sufficiency of things
near. My face grows
clockwise. It strikes me
each time I look away.
UNDO FORCES
Hand it to yourself,
friend, the dust of this
faraway coinage. Find
yourself in the nth
country, under its ought—
bitten skies, be amused
by the shouts
of its shattering
boys in brass. Instigate
the landscape, its damning
effect. Come away
from it. All of us will
run from the nth
country. So be
good. Roam with us
who roam like geese
through widening streets
where a trumpet erupts
inside the skull,
into a troubling
form of hillside
and hollow.
__________________________
Michael Trocchia grew up on Long Island. He received an M.A. in philosophy from Temple University. He currently lives in Virginia, where he teaches philosophy at James Madison University and works in the university’s library. His poetry and prose have appeared in Mid-American Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Open Letters Monthly, Caketrain, elimae, Tar River Poetry, Camera Obscura Journal, The Dirty Napkin, and NOO Journal. Work is forthcoming in Pear Noir!.
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