2 December 2002 | Vol. 2, No. 4

When the Story Opens

by ALLAN PETERSON

The ocean unfolds itself. The tongue stays put,

unreadable and needless.

We come to watch, speechless to the lake

where dragonflies dip their abdomens like brushes

to lay their eggs on the reed stalks

painting the future in small daubs.

When the story opens, a door closes. You are called

to attention, to more particular and the ocean named for it,

Atlantic and Specific.

At night we are the Janus sleepers

watching both ways as if dreams had directions

and we might not see them coming,

or had methods for entering sleep like the under-river

or for children at the ride how they must be

higher than the mark on the doorway.

My head goes one way, metal turns metal into wood.

My hand visits your thigh and sex answers sex

in the front yard, in the throats of the eat and be eaten.

And here we are, riskiness and need,

simple facts that plait the world with second thoughts.

Something is calling soon as I close my eyes.

It called in daylight, but I listened instead of answering.

My tongue was an oyster after last night,

too late, too oily, a steel bolt asleep in its barrel.