No Help for That | Jackie Clark

Automobiles
& search lights

& intimacy sulk
down the Mississippi,

redeeming narrative
structure & direction.

If this is “I” here,
then this is not “I”

there and if we skim
along for long enough

we will outlast
what rivals our

warmly brushed faces.
Patterns menace liplessly

in the grown light,
in rolling side steps

& the indelible warmth
of all or nothing.

A lark is a lark,
is a lark, lonely

on a empty top
& wants things

that are still
without names

on this flowing penitentiary,
wants to recollect

one isolated image:
a kitchen with high

chairs, a counter
that one can climb.