Rachel Zucker

What Modest Wants

          so in there fractures which are not space but fractures

                                                "when the night did not make sense the baby broke it"
                                                "when the body couldn't hold it opened"

between meant and want          

                                               the yawn of the cutter aches and loosens

                          the smell of meat, the jaw human

inside a woman is always window

            shuttered or latticed or latched or shattered

and when it opens:                              

            conch, wine glass, tuba, funnel : shape of rimmed echo

                                   ribs reverb, abound, redound, she

resembles
            but is the true gray beneath shadow, before dawn

            perfect average film can't manage

            bowl filled, flawless; its still meniscus

where it will cover the embankment she dreams water

            wills the tents and trees
be: a mountain's afterthought

they are trying to get up again, these spirits

their sticks and dances and false humors

                                    but she won't have it

rather the edge, the linger, and with her eyes malign them

                                   a phage, she takes them,
                                                            ocean

                                  and up

          for they love and trust ornament

meanwhile the roof is the inverse or delve of modesty

                                    bosom peak of twilight

                        the ledge a gesture (romantic)
                                    confession: detail

                 failed catwalk

           the solar flare is formidable
in it freedom, decision

             —divorce, career, collage, flare! tennis, marinade; a salvaged boxspring rigged with
flashing bulbs—                    

            whereas the black flat, cilium only
the scales or spidery press of pollen are

            breath (desire) burned/ blasted

                                                                         [resident]

see through a stretched fin so long the eyes subtract
its thin striations:

                       overcast or brume or

            fish, memory

the pointe at which the satin toe meets stage
             is the axis of planet

                        mark, mark        
   

evergreens shrug their needles          

from space a ladder or portal onto:

                                        the figure is this and conquest

show, show, show, show

            the sun is all over the eye                    
                                    [his shape!]

                           no wonder a body wants, wants for flying