Nils Michals
World

Against air

another beautiful bird’s

blue body

into the bright cannot.

My captain: children, a city, close clouds.

Color come dark

as the deep down earth evens

evening and the eyes of a face

fall, fall, feel the field go glass, go hands

having heads hear horses,

ice itself go la la la.

Lake, at last. And leaves.

Let light line a little.

Look, my love—

man may, might,

might mouths move, moving near

night.

Nothing now.

Once open

our own palms part, pass.

Radios rise into the red—

say sea, say “see”,

say sky should simply

sleep in smoke and snow.

Someone. Something. A sound

and still sun: surfaces.

Things by the thousand threading through: a throat,

a touch, trees turning.

A voice. Water. Wave white

on whose wind?

A window through which a wing becomes word

becomes world.

This poem first appeared in diode.