CD Eskilson

I never held a camera.
Never held a camera but carry the scene with me.

The scene is a wheat field, its autumn
stalks crookfingered, reentering
the ground as if grasping buried cloth.  

          The scene is fingers
crooked in the ground when you take me
to a park bench
on astroturf behind your house;

transmutation of a wing bone into door hinge.

When you take me a block past my house
afterwards and ask
to diagnose roiling off your tongue.
                         Where I twist
you against the sidewalk with my palms,
refract want through alarm glass.

     Flaked to my lips
want masts a victory flag.

If utterance is existence I screech birds:
     if afterwards is pointing to a street sign,
     pointing to black teeth
and wondering how to string them in a necklace.

Never held a camera
though film wills itself a dream for matches,

arc of nitrate ghosts to guard
a spot on the wall where space screams.

Until a wheat field gathers us,
wraps us in cloth pulled from the earth.
Earth that won't escape you.