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Untitled
by Lindsay Turner
We reached the city
in December, we came down
out of the hills and crossed
dry plains to where it rose.
The air was turning hands to yellow
stone. The windows held black
webs of branches.
In a column
of the sky between the buildings:
a red-tailed hawk, sun
making the bronze of fall
in his wing-feathers, in the winter.
I’ve heard them, said
the watchman, but I’ve never seen
one here before.
The air kept turning us to stone.
[The Island]
The schedules got us here just fine, to the island
where saints weather
on the farthest promontory. Big waves
shut doors on the beach.
The wind opens them.
Water softens up the edges
of the cove. The lighthouse sounds:
a trumpet raised,
lips pursed, a flare beginning,
the continuing concerto lost in fog.
A half-taut spiderweb
flapping in the wind,
mist before a crevice
in the rock. The rock is spread
with dry green lichen.
At sea the rocks,
sea-reddened, do not
resolve. Only water
makes white scars on them
that disappear.
It might be
how the world ends:
the executioner’s whistle—
a beautiful color—
a shell—
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