Night Shift

~ after Armando Valero, "Flower Girl

Between the wind and the tree
                            is the sound
of a train bisecting the day. 
                            Between the eye
and the meadow is the shape
                            of the bend made in each
finger of grass. It is inaccurate
                            to speak of ships
passing each other in the night:
                            we are always
tearing ourselves in half while the body held in place
                            is always turning toward the station
or the town or looking for rest
                            rooms, the ticket counter,
the 24-hour drugstore, a clean bed
                            in the rundown motel.
Between dreaming and rousing, a tingle
                            in the blood before it wakes;
that relief from being returned.
                            Even the lily we name star-
gazer films over with orange dust
                            in the crimson of its throat, 
pulling away from the edges bandaged white.
                             
                            

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