JUDITH ROITMAN

DOOR

Each touch her mind
her brain each hand each
tendril in the dark without
a knife without a mastiff
without a serpent the door
can't carry him the door
can't touch her you'll forget
your name your eyes the fool
reaches out the railing
vanishes each atom
is not itself
how is it to be reminded
how is it to be seen as raven
as woodpile as a shard
unfinished she sees the door
secreted in its passages
he walks while crocodiles swirl
past him each step
a memory each step
forgotten significance
forgotten he had put it
on a shelf the shelf
forgotten.

EIGHT

What do you call yourself what do
you turn over unaided what
do you hold your arms out to how
will you pull yourself out of the
boulder the lawn the tree uproot-
ed who moves your fingers the way
a melon moves in sunlight what
crosses crossed your path and crossed a-
gain what bird strikes the pond what storm
is coming how does sunlight cross
the path unaided how do you
see without goggles without frec-
kles without skin where do you go
when no-one is looking how can
lightning shift direction why does
the sea boil without mercy how
can you live with these hands these feet
how do you wash the sockets where
do your eyes go when you sleep how
do your ears retract in cold why
do you touch me like this like this
like this again.

THE SCARY MAN

You hide when he hides you run
when he runs the scary man
with his dog I didn't count
the seeds I didn't run into
the background I didn't sit
under the elm counting repetitions
crows and squirrels in their madness
the scary man sits where anyone
can see him the dog repeats the vigil
the sit the rump on the ground the ground
wet while crows move uncounted seeds fall
squirrels search they raise their tails everything
is misplaced everything would be missing
if it weren't found the scary man moves
in the bushes by the creek his feet move
where coyotes move his eyes are yellow like
coyote eyes EW goes the teenager across
the street HE'S DISGUSTING the scary man
moves down the center of the street cars scatter
his shirt has mud on him the mangy coyote
has met his match together they eat carrion
together they scatter seeds we hide
behind the bushes we hide behind the crows
if you hold your breath you die.

THE BOAR KING

This body not this body welcoming this body they come
turned backward they come inverted they come
with knives with hatchets they come with arms
and feet and hands we hide
in the corn we hide among the ants we cannot
silence our children our goats our dogs
you see human here and I see mud and mud
and mud again I see hands here and here again
I see eyes enmeshed I see
photons departing for other planets it is
the boar king floating in his castle it is
lips moving in sleep her body rests
a long bench rests beside it the sky
is so bright her toes
shine so brightly the cameras
can't stop moving there is no justification
for their vision no medication
for their wounds the boar king's army
is coming they will save us what vocabulary
do they speak what wounds
have shaped their faces they come with jewels
and precious herbs the boar king's army will save us
they will carry us to outer planets they will take us
underground her face
will not turn away from this she meets him
fully he moves towards her his money
silent her face his feet their eyes moving
the boar king looks away his bright tusks shining.

Judith Roitman's most recent book is Roswell (theenk Books 2018); her most recent chapbook is Provisional (dancing girl press 2019). Other chaps include Slackline (Hank's Loose Gravel Press), Furnace Mountain (Omerta), Ku: a thumb book (Airfoil Press) and Two: ghazals (Horse Less Press). Her poems have recently appeared in Equalizer, the tiny, December, Rogue Agent, The Writing Disorder, Galataea Resurrects, Otoliths, Eleven Eleven, Horse Less Press, Talisman and Yew; her book No Face: Selected and New Poems (First Intensity) appeared in 2008. She lives in Lawrence KS.