Christine Hume, p.2



FOG HORNS
        after Arthur Dove

A gunshot organs the fog, then three blinks
        subtract each other--the (once) red sky behind him arranged.
                He must have been unravelling a cold city's lights.

The only fixed point inside blackens
        like a mouth; the lapping is an (accident) of muscle
                so that he bends his knees while walking on the world.

Casting for spells and caveats from the yawl,
        his fluent eye holds (something of) a hardwine chant.
                Though his mouth is what he feared:

The heavy axis of that which must give up
        what it makes real in itself. The (dumb) glare burns down
                to nothing but areolae handwritten as beehives.

He watches the trance haunting our 291 smoke curls
        and lees in glasses. This is (why) his memory of a meteor
                over an ocean ago in Halesite rings accurately white.

We call into his gong-tormented folds;
        a seeing syllable turns (belly) up in his brain.
                The sound assumes we live its ruddy concentricity:

        If his grip begins to shake (as he offers)...
                If it's beautiful it will poison you.

1. organs]mirrors
8. hardwine]burning]red bells
9. the mask of moaning a mouth
11. glare]buckeye painted on a bowl
15. an ocean]under his cobbled monocle
17. syllable]favorite cymball]apple
18. live]wade out in
19. He remembers how fast the sea wills you.