Infrared

Infrared sound is just the slight unveiling

When you’re young you never notice

The airplane overhead, so commonplace

You don’t notice

The water parting,

The white mirror

When I was slightly more naive than now

I would walk barefoot through the poison ivy

And have no reaction

The modest miracle

Humming my disappearance into the maples and the rain

 

Inside Joke

What wind is this?

Each wind has a name and I want to know this one’s name

Walking with me through February, Santa Fe: and it comes up on me like a television signal: the ghost of punchlines forgotten but I can hear the laughtrack

My little joke

All grown up

Eclipsed like the closed folds of morning glories

Black seeds hidden with pesticide and cold

I could have been a clown, encased in ice: the children would have loved me

But I’ve seen the light go out of the machinery too often

Become too aware of the repetition

And not watched enough sunsets to fill my spirit with a high gloss magazine joy

Swallowing motion

Whole

What wind?

What east?

Perhaps I should have drank more deeply when the furnace offered

 

Garden/ Attempt

The sharpened root reaching through sand

Water

Is a manifestation of time

 

In the long term, it moves with the gravity of the soil: like a caul

The roots inhale

What they can

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Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. He is the author of several collections of poetry including ‘The Whisper Gallery’ and ‘The Age Of Jive’. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.