from: Paradise
Claire DeVoogd


Nate and I pass through the construction site
(They are making tennis courts) 
Up a slope of mud over 
A little dip and across the ridge 
Then down to a hole in the fence 
Beside the park, between the tech high school 
And the highway. We walk along there
Recording things crossing over
Five thousand skeletons but we don’t know exactly
Where they are, which seems strange.
Poisoned knotweed clusters 
Phragmites, ACME bricks and some
Kind of stone wall collapsed. Bottles 
Of piss. Ducks on a pond. As a child
I would look out the car window
At places like this and imagine 
I could escape in them. In truth
It is a feeling I still have, suddenly 
Seeming able to breathe 
In these slack places between cities 
And suburbs, beside exit ramps, small
Rank overgrown places where development has failed 
Or faltered. Like when we were walking
In February, after I saw that park
Of baseball fields all grown over
And said let’s stop here
And we did and walked through the phragmites 
Long whispering golden grasses broken asphalt
Brambles and across a tree line 
And the weird rises and eddies 
And sour ground told us 
We crossed a landfill, long capped 
And the glad wind blew
And no one could see us
I found a white cedar trunk
From the plank roads, sunk since
In the swamp
And another blue marble




When we emerge again into the visible
World two police cars approach us
The cops get out and wave us down
Keep us for twenty minutes 
Trying to make us understand 
They’re just doing their jobs
They’re covered in weapons 
Telling us about an old dinosaur 
Theme park, that the county is the most
Populous one in the country
Running our names. We’re recording this
They say. After they let us go
They still follow us. What 
Do they want? Do they want anything
They might be opposed to desire




And the god of insects smiled
God of trap rock 
Volcano god 
Smiled and looked glad throughout
The wholesome planet
The leaning planet
The planet slipping out the back door
The planet on its last legs
Planet sniffing magnolia perfume
The nasty planet
Huffing perfume
Tongue planet 
Planet in slacks tired planet wage
Work planet the planet 
That can’t afford basic necessities
Planet shot from space
In the street red carpet
Planet.




Abby slipped on
A pair of new blue jeans
And went to work. She carried
A bag of smooth brown leather. 
Someone on the train said
Are you alright? He had 
Tears in his eyes. Yes, she said.
Oh ok. I just wanted to check in.
I thought I heard a baby screaming.
When she got off the train 
He said are you going home
No, I’m going to work, she said.
Be careful, he said. Get there safe.
He had tears in his eyes 
But they didn’t fall, they just sat there
Like boats on twin lakes. 




What likes lakes? Everything.
Everything slackens beside lakes.
Black stones sit slackly in lakes




Black stones come out of lakes rustling
And when the lakes go away
People suck on the stones. 

Drepanis Pacifica


Was last recorded in 1898 above Hilo.
Chalcedony for its eye. Its wing
Topaz, and voice a long, plaintive whistle.
I felt I saw them in it, the many millions

Circling the whistle. I felt I saw
Them and I felt love. Rapt by
Love, I can make it sometimes, at a red
Light, in the fumes, each

Brick what entire real voice
Of adamantine counterforce and quieted
Syllable. Feel curved design, the beak curved
For Lobelia, now ornament, now global

And be in love with the globe ornamental
And be wanting, and turn, unslaked and total.

And Further


Then I start again, my device
Like a hare on solid blue
White field. We are here

And something is rushing 
By—it may be the quick river, persistent 
Under its changeable coat of

Ice. Thus, you reply, you may see there are nearly
Intolerable many ways to say these 
Dull things (the ones about the white hare

Coats loping, and the various river). Naturally
So it induces in me
Some anguish, that pleasure of taking

The paint back on the brush.
But no word for the shape of these 
Dry branches that rustle

Beside it. Peace. No word for the shape of 
These things. Peace, and some anguish, to walk spanningly 
Among these shapeless, formal things.