“Mechanical Alligator” by J. Zachary Rothstein

Implements

Softly-bound and doubtful pockets cut a suitable machine

out of ice, counting the number of apertures replaced

further afield. Together, uncertain of “a city on the inconstant

billows” and much too windy, Levanesky’s lost flyers

persist northward, a presentation quiet and more civilized.

A massive summer starts over in the spirit of a polar

bear, in the spirit of a penknife. It’s a packaged

order from the top of the world once teaming with misspelled

bluebells and primroses, frost smoke and cockpits, lichen-

covered rocky surfaces, old rags strung at the back of the plane

over the fuel tanks we’ve forgotten about. The missing

riverbank is useful in its own way as if fitted by a hidden sky,

by a slight pair working on the trading station together. The in-

vogue game of pick-up-sticks applies its glue to the margins

in low-cut evening wear after a stormy back and forth has traced

the game itself back to an earlier form of summer.

 

*Quote from Henry V encountered randomly in an old recording.

January Swim

I was familiar with the forested northland. The crew

numbering its work took a chance going outside.

Faint smoke and a gentle breeze, a circle of bright

eyes peering through the grey morning. It was a

matter of getting out to learn the forest; it was a

matter of being within reach of what we needed

to know our hearts were good. “But worse clouds

will come,” you said, “see that you bring him home.”

If the wind was in our favor, a bread box entered

the picture too. The gesture of the canoe pulled into

your plaited skirt. To love or dream, but never both.

Our thinking tucked benumbed hands into a showing

of impressive power. We were down in that forest

working on the page together, faces revealed in the sun,

faces unspeakably pure.

 

Note: This poem was composed using words and phrases found in John Muir’s essay “The Discovery of Glacier Bay.”