The Sofa Series

from The Sofa Series

For the sake of absolute balance, on one side

of the walkway a pink bush, on the other, a white.

Her socks match her shirt. On the mantel two candlesticks

push out six inches from either wall.

Everything's like pieces of desert paper

blowing in the wind. The motel disappears,

the road already comes undone, and beer cans litter

what's left of vacancy. On Saturdays there's no room

except the sky. Like a veneer of saranwrap the city

lies across a basin waiting to be rolled up,

taken to a new set of circumstances and spread out

for hoards of people with weapons or without.

Everyone prances like ponies, skitters like lizards.

No wonder her silver shoes, no matter her silver hair.

•

If the chair doesn't move across polished floors

and tables aren't burning with electric pulse,

if I can't glide in patent shoes over turquoise tile,

why have you brought me here?

What reason for such straight lines,

such an ill-drawn moon?

When the cactus glows at night I'll swim the length

and hold my breath until the edge of the sea.

Once, in between one belief and another, I thought

this town's at the end of all waters.

Nobody lives here who isn't already taking notes.

Across from her at the counter a cowboy reads a script

and she responds with coy laughter.

Nothing happens. We take walks. Suddenly the slide.

Martha Ronk Lifson