Seth Landman
I Send Out Versions of the Line
One line is a shape, one a course,
one a decision. One line is
a demarcation. A busted coupling,
a sliding plate, a puzzle piece,
a chord, a fault is a line.
What I say to a ghost on the state highway,
the state line and the highway itself,
the way I get to you
as-the-crow-flies,
the geographical moment of your presence:
all real lines I crossed.
To acknowledge one’s position by noting
what happens at the divergence,
the brand new tectonics at our edges.
Blue Tables
When you go outside, remember to bring with you a jacket.
In the pockets, remember seeds and medicines.
Remember a world of dust on all furniture.
On the furniture’s mahogany sheen.
The woods ballast the day when you go out into them to live.
Hibernate in the sweet smell of a bear’s cave.
Under water there is more pressure and out in space there is
less pressure and here I still feel unsettled.
Earth’s extremes come to greet you now.
At the bottom of the deepest surface depression I have left
you a message.
Everything will be okay soon.
In the driest place on Earth, rainfall is barely measurable,
which is not to say it doesn’t exist.
It exists in the imaginations of the people who live there.