K Van Petten

“Out here/ in the nowhere/ swirl” of K’s “not music/but you can dance/not song/but you can sing/not poetry,” harmony, like all things is borrowed, stolen, “but what it turns into looks a whole lot like” — “fireflies /and a perfect apple pie recipe/ and mosquitoes/and bird crust” “juicy, blood-orange maps of language” that’ll make you fall in love with the sound, “the porn of moon joy/going in/ and out” making “shadows and not mind/too much” “we’re in the middle” an in-between “what it is and what it means” river “a hand’s lifeline” flowing with “Felling/ a shot of liquid life/great for long walks/for endings/for beginning” for “wherever it is books go” where ”life was something that happened” “all at once/a tether,/ a multitude” of moss and branch and birdsong, honey, rain and seaweed, batter and dust, “that funky orange stuff that makes new/ooze from our trunks” a paradise not lost, but chanced, breathed in and hummed ”like it’s the first thing that’s ever happened.