Four Poems

PERFORMING AS IF

Lissen, I have perfected rhyme
against the tyranny of privacy. It’s total picnic.
That child is a stranger but wants you to notice him
fishing an ice cube from its glass.
If we can manage to recover conversation from speech, that is  genius
said Stein, and named her dog basket. Since time
is presence, you at a Stein conference
on Saturday cannot  exist freshly         birdly          whirrldy   day 
carries its shade, how outdoor
shadows are full of the sky/ they are colored by

CODA

lemon from my mother’s sheet the fabric
of an altar you have, how challenging 
this video found you a reason              lissen,
flatland             is         descent         & you’ve been piling   
up around math that keeps data private
are you like me              
can you mouth sounds of harvest           or are you deaf?
a coin          is both head and tail            when spinning
bumblebee          “rogue new moon”              how many
wicked pink panther mode slithering

RING

dragonfly wrests the sun

from its dread branch students today can’t grasp 

the shape of events cut from 9/11 paper

upon which you fold fortunes think of a gift

one of the most beautiful things you can be

is that which did not happen

i am living well moving states losing feet

faster than any model predicted upon this sequencing

i make a child into a story and vanish

in a burst of income dripping glaciers 

dangled from the lobe

of my preschool teacher

THE DAY I HAD OFF PURPLE

i’m in a relation-producing mood and toxic

the feminine energy of the magnetic gravity of the king of wants   write

dish glasses paper soap but am lazy:

fennel, fenugreek, rose hip

day six i discovered the water clock outside, purple 

washes my eyes and the name

of the intelligent image runs clear through me

like a daisy with a yellow center in the grove

kissing  streaks fought persistently with the mind 

the chaos had caused some magnified embodiment

flew out of gorgeous frequencies

gee,

i hope

it doesn’t take me all night!

∩

Scout Faller is a Pushcart-nominated poet and recipient of the Leijia Hanrahan Scholarship for Communist Women Who Smoke. They live in Southern California and are rarely bored.