LIE DOWN WHERE THEIR FACES ARE by James Allen Hall
The woman across the street
on her knees again, shut out in the snow
by her husband. Every week, this ritual:
a man, a crying woman, the blue cold
earth that marries them. When he lets
her in, she lays in bed next to him.
He cries in her armpit. Even their
dog lays down, tree-chained heir,
his head between his paws. In the morning,
the woman is a satin worksong
torn by passing cars as it limps its hope
across the road to my ear. I want to stop
before I can be infected, I am humming
and counting out the pills I think of
as last. She sings to make her dress less
permeable to the snow. I want to know
the way to leave without leaving
soiled clothes behind. The song says
love will change the world, but spring is
a field of goldenrod, framed by thwarted
engines, rusting red in their back
yard, each empty socket eyeing its season
of repair. I can almost taste the weeds,
their waxy stems thick among the dented
fenders. So much land, every curse and love
too could be buried here. One night, late
March, the dog escapes into the forest.
Black fur a mangy blur against the trees.
They call for him all the next day.
The chain waits for him, its rusted collar
tight around my throat. If he returns,
he won’t be seen alive again. Fled,
he will live forever.
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THE SAW by James Allen Hall
Galeria Hermandad, Toledo
A hand made this, hammered flat a hot length of iron,
cut one side jagged, a row of teeth. The criminal
would be hoisted up, tied inverted, the saw
at his scrotum. The act required two men
before and aft, their breath ragged, flesh straining
through flesh, a saw coming for his eyes. Once
he followed a plainclothes soldier home. Kissed him
open-eyed. Saw the night shredded down to morning.
Saw what was approaching, was breaking in the door
even now: in the closet, a row of uniforms,
legs halved by hanging. The wrack the maiden
the noose the saw. Sierra. I’ll never say it right.
We are standing in Toledo, in dry museum light.
I’m pressing my hands against the stained glass
of the wrong century. In a cathedral down the street,
a row of white pointed pontiff hats, preserved
behind glass, eyeing my wrists. Last night I was suspect,
legs spread. And you, soldier, tied them wide.
I leave my hand in yours and follow you home,
the way I’ve always done, wanting to be wrong
about why you won’t touch the rest of me,
why there’s something that loves me cut apart.
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