ALICE BOLIN

Landscape: the moon

Spring in the side yard, I write pulp romance
on postcards. I learn to think of you

as a kind of closeness. Just to get at it:
some suck paper in lawn chairs, some

indulge in salt marshes. Pearlish satellite
of my existence, my sleepy heart

circles the world. Did you receive
my transmissions, the postcards

I sent saying, “With see-through ropes
she is tied to the railroad tracks.

She is aware of your unraveling.
You’ve got to see this thing through.”

On the contrary, nothing is retreating.
It comes in, pressing against the window,

makes us know the glass again. Bedtime
and a pile of cassettes to sift through—oh

how everything is gleaming! Thank you
for this perigee. Stationery’s porcelain warmth.