Christopher Brean Murray
Spartan Gavotte
A constellation shivers in the firmament.
Clavichord notes ricochet from a dome inscribed by anguish.
Archetype of the jay—it’s nonetheless drawn to seed.
A fire in the distance calls our names.
It calls through the tangled boscage.
Do you know the man in severest suit? Did you
invite him? Give him your phone number?
In the attic there’s a painting that’s both fictional and true.
It depicts a holy rebellion.
A blood-flecked arm extends a flare into darkness.
The darkness vaults on like a highway, like a fierce bird
whose wingspan embraces an impossible girth. One of its feathers
is released from earth—it interrogates the dusts
of an undiscovered planet. Still, farm life continues.
Sky bathes the wheat stalk on which the polished beetle dreams.
Cables, alive with information, crisscross in the soil.
A man, hunched over a page, strains to pronounce a word.
How can it help him? Can it stem the tide?
The tide fists onward, tenderizing the beach.
It washes a crab into a high shelf of weed. It rinses the hand
flayed by fishing line. Another tide courses through the cables.
Neither is more political. Neither cares a jot.
Far away a man is led to a field and forced to kneel.
He kneels a long time.