DAVID LEVINE

POEM FOR METAL

The plaster sky, this shortness
of breath, it’s all powder
in massive crashes.  Brake
fluid lines the candy centers.
Across the divider, an ambulance
waves, turns to ash, waves again.

THIS IS JUST A PLACE

Retreat here.

Not everything is a body.

            For example, I once took a train to a castle in Hungary.  Anything foreign, given enough time, resembles the moon.  Unnamed harvests, endless fields, space the same as anywhere but the value of space?  Radically different. Like the wood frame of a farmhouse decomposed.

This music is just a recording of crickets, looped over itself:
The swarm growing, the swarm fading away.

David Levine grew up in the poorly named town of New City, NY. He has an MFA from Colorado University and is pursuing a PhD in English at the University of South Dakota. His poetry has been published in White Whale Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, SpringGun, UCity Review, and other journals.