Three poems by Mark Jarman

The Chalk of Moses Skreeks Between My Fingers

• The chalk of Moses skreeks between my fingers.
• Milton’s blindness burns through my sheer eyelids.
• Edmondsen’s hammer and chisel weigh down both my hands.
• Yes, in my dreams.

• Let me start again. I bite my index finger
• and follow a trail of thought into a tunnel,
• not moving from my desk, sweeping for clues,
• footing it slowly.

• Walls drop tapestries. Ceilings buckle.
• Interior rooms unfold like ruined churches.
• And bodies ready to be coupled with
• produce lampblack for ink.

• I look around for one true standing thing
• or lying thing. Rising from underfoot
• the realm of space is dizzying and close.
• I lean, put down a word.

She Twirled Along the Brick Wall, Fingertips

• She twirled along the brick wall, fingertips
• clawing at mortar to take hold
• and skittering over the wall face like a keyboard,
• frantic, muted.

• And I as usual was just trudging along,
• head down — on ice this time — more of a mincing
• than true trudging, though my soul trudged,
• when I caught her.

• Slim, young, padded in pleated fleece,
• and taller than I as I helped her stand,
• she pulled an earplug out beneath her knit cap,
• said, “Ouch.”

• And said it like a quiet bid for privacy.
• Paternal, winded, I wanted an assurance.
• And she assured me with a thanks that meant,
• “Just let me cry.”

O World Flung Inward by an Arm of Stars

• O world flung inward by an arm of stars,
• feeling out of control or stalled,
• o friend or enemy, propelled
• always it seems without effort

• among stars, a star yourself,
• trailing your solar wind,
• asleep in your life
• as we dream you’re awake,

• spare part, vital particle,
• hung in a table leg or wisp of steam,
• your permanence and evanescence
• balanced by a term of art,

• o make a joyful noise,
• you’re on your way,
• your transit has been noted
• and made music.

Mark Jarman’s most recent collection of poetry is Bone Fires: New and Selected Poems (Sarabande Books, 2011). His honors include the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, the Poets’ Prize, the Balcones Poetry Prize, and a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry. He is Centennial Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. Sarabande Books will publish his next collection of poetry, The Heronry, in 2017.