heather bowlan

Electricity finds us

Your blue comes from my brown.

I know your name by your eyes.

You call me, found infant,

unscathed and translucent

among burning volts and power lines.

You recur.

In dreaming, my body is a stranger's;

you assume it is yours.

My left breast aches with milk.

Your resting pulse binds

my heart's opposite poles.

You take yourself from me as always.

At dawn I am slight without child,

a lonely symmetrical field.

Inside the cave ivy cracks stone:

one shoot and the finger of a bud.

My flash ignites, stale air explodes.

The vine trembles with light.

Poem for IKEA

In one prefab room, a small shopping family 

converges, caressing stainless spigots, loving     

the mauve ceramic backsplash and recessed lighting.

In other coves, waves of wanderers eddy

clutching spatulas, chopsticks, and candles.

In an ancient forest to which we long

to return, beyond these folding tables

and bamboo headboards,

the animal is drawn to soothing greens,

whether desk lamps, casseroles, or curtains;

the silver beauty of the beach;

anything blood red.