POETRY

Love, Delight, and Alarm [excerpt]

by Karen Weiser

Then the treehouse burned.  And continued

                                                                  unobliterable as the sea

                                  to burn.  The photo of it burning

hangs on its wall, taken from high up,

                                  but not that high.  The firemen

approach cautiously, minus the

                                   four-part regimented solace, that

would repeat.  If the act of

                                    painting is Drawing the boundaries

of a fire, can I disappear

                                    into the initial combustion?  If the

act of painting stops time or at

                                    least its cornet of fronted tremendous,

I could disappear into the Encyclopedia

                                    of Animal Life as the cherub's sleepiest

wet tusk.  I could start with a dexterous

                                    periscope and end by feeling

time, the largest block of it

                                    I can conceive collectively

                                                                     Smell I the flowers, or thee?
                                                                                  See I lakes, or eyes?