Adam Clay
Elegy for the Forgotten Thought of What Brought Us Here
Even if our minds do trick us, even if we act as shadows the earth cannot pause without us. The earth could not be anything we tell ourselves. Like asking what God wants, like asking what that some insect somewhere might dissecting a story into a beginning and an end. Overhead, a single bird flaps its wings. Overhead, a thousand birds flap their wings- a rock that exists despite the world's intentions, despite the direction
on a wall
blindly unaware of the sun setting behind us,
without the sum of its parts
any of us wants. As if desire is all it takes to make any of us a god
bow down to. The trees all have two names that split this town-
all towns-
Yes, that perfectly.
And the moment of hesitation, of action, of disaster comes and then goes
and the question mark at the end of the tunnel is in reality a single rock,
in which the world leans.
Grief and Its Source
A classical sky made from glass and a view from above the earth, back at the dull moon Do I think the well has gone dry, And then the spinning world ceases to- Where was it that I found myself face near the sand I dare to remove a puzzle piece Bereft of perception, what is the sun? What is the ideal curtain-call spoken in the hinge of darkness do we pause to worship Adam Clay lives in Michigan and is the author of The Wash (Parlor Press, 2006). His second book, A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.
refracted back, a view of an explosion pipelined back at itself,
still visible along the arc of noon-time.
the bucket to be bottomless, the well's bottom rising up and up
with the clouds in the sky slowly filling with briny rain,
meant to poison the well?
And the memory of a lake looms larger than the lake itself.
Psalm for the Silence in the Air Before the Newspaper Hits the Ground
looking for a grain of sand
among a million others? And did
from the yard so carefully pruned,
the yard that would have seemed
savage a year ago to any passerby but myself?
of diesel fumes and worn-out railroad ties
outside every door? At what point
the ringing phone no one else can hear?
