b r u c e c o v e y

b r u c e c o v e y
	Hat Pine Cube: An Exercise in Anti–Matter Reveal 132: Union

Hat
	Each one tings against the surface of this aluminum sheet Heaven so far or an unfulfilled conditional Each arcs north & south, a 2-dimensional metronome Calculating its landing strip & skirting The pelican paths Each one walks you to your door and anticipates A typewriter, a record, a convection oven & to break the Pillsbury dough boy. Each rests & tears its presence open, shiny bow to launder Sometime in the future To prevent straying from the foot-worn past & candy & junk mail. This is your vial Captured next to the trees It’s this spider composed of strings of letters Partnered, yet shattered, each piece A reconciliation Of forgotten chips. You forgot my ante & Something about a newspaper, each swervy phoneme Clean & delicious & to protect my head
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Pine Cube: An Exercise in Anti–Matter
	Relax so that when the brownies creep up your back & with a little Ladder to wrinkle your spine, you’ll shrug & think it’s the wind or Hair or harmless rustling. Peggy once took a wet one behind the ear & licked a stamp & sent it to Bowling Green, while the navel (orange) almost drowned in its own slobber. At the end of its long Journey, the basilisk nestles next to your big toe, snoring lightly (do basilisks purr?—I saw them mop one up on television it had Fallen asleep on the side of the road until the cactus fell down & pulped it full of pores. But when you peeled back its crisp skin & opened its still-moist rib cage like a book, you saw polished tools The sort of thing some forgetful little bluebird might have taken From your pantry, grasping it in her beak or talons & flown
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from Reveal Reveal 132: Union
	Belgium: It happens time after time France: All clips in integrality Germany: From the exciting hustle and bustle Italy: About expositions, museums, and other Luxembourg: It lost more than half of Netherlands: The award-winning airport Denmark: I’m traveling from Ireland: Indices of recent publications United Kingdom: In general Greece: Completely lacking in metal resources Spain: But suffering through a devastating civil war Portugal: And do not know how to book? Austria: Status remained unclear for a decade Finland: Among its carnival of words Sweden: Until evening to hand out presents Cyprus: & acts with psychology of self-defense Czech Republic: In what is the first major Estonia: Limits fixed in coordination Hungary: If you click on a red triangle Latvia: Or to the depth of exploitation Lithuania: Many scattered small lakes Malta: Get around by horse-drawn karrozin Poland: A shock therapy program Slovakia: The velvet divorce Slovenia: What’s cooking
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BRUCE COVEY teaches at Emory University and is the author of The Greek Gods as Telephone Wires and Ten Pins, Ten Frames, both from Front Room Publishers. His recent work also appears or is forthcoming in LIT, The Hat, Bombay Gin, Explosive, Pool, Boog City, the tiny, 580 Split, and other journals. He edits the web-based journal Coconut and curates the “What’s New in Poetry” reading series in Atlanta.