TWO POEMS by Cate Lycurgus
COORDINATE VISION
There may not be a whole world, just
the hole that I know of it.
Though I scale up, ever-after a vista
that will hold. Water for whatever
dialect of thirst, or map from where
it flows. Of playground rocks
tossed at my heels, heels cracked like alpine
contour drawings, drawing
a placebo in the final stage—I’ll proclaim
nothing. My ache is addendum
to laments long-tenanted in blood less faulty
than mine; which quakes
when I survey the timeless plates, how
boundaries shift to constrain.
Equipped with legend and no dead-weight,
a face of freckles constellating
spangled ways ahead—I toss out the old-
growth compass. Ask
for small dippers of what is not: capital,
settled, primary color; try
ripping perforated paths to let our borders
bleed. Holiest
of holies. But who am I to approximate
a shrinking eyelet of hurricane
when every storm I manage to out-wait
takes another girl’s name?
At last the globe tilts, swiveling my gaze
from the well-charted path
of my own gale to zoom out, diffuse, so
dilate: the Aida, the Boone, the Cate.
CARE/FUL
I don’t think I could care
less for the buy-one-/ get-one
free unless the bye is some re-
prieve and one my getting full-/ly
how less is all that I need
besides that TV left beneath
the olive tree w/a shaky
sharpied sign free
for-all is saying all
of y’all—
please— free me of this
broke machine it is easier to un-
load to free load load up on
those free samples
ample space than to make
a place and one’s days full/-y
of care as you said I was free
to go away free to walk
from the curb take no/thing
with me care- free but know: I never
was or was—
every day I chose
