Back to Issue 2

Alchemy by Gary Duehr

At such moments something raw:
    solitary, unreal
A dog, a rat, a beetle
A stunted apple tree, its bark
    cracked and chipped
    as the glaze of an old painting

At such moments
    nothing without life, nothing
    that does not exist, that cannot
    be recalled

Yet

We long to say: it is not so

Turning in a storm of roses
Whispering in the dark:
    order of the angels, we think, not
    airplane wing
Always, always, not what's there
    but something else

Knowing: we are not meant to live thus
And: home, where is home, where

In lead, in rust? In straw and ash?
At one moment a dog;
    the next, a feeling of rapture
As if fellow creatures by the thousand
    were crawling and gasping
    inside the skin, scratching
     to get out

Imagine being inside a rocket made of chalk
Or wearing a ballgown fashioned from tin:
    its folds sharp, unyielding

Holy holy holy

Save us, we yearn to say
Save us in this time of fleas
See how we shiver and shake
    in anticipation

From scorched earth, we raise
    a one-fingered salute

Given by Gary Duehr

That no-one is ever completely innocent
    or wholly guilty
And, that noisy feet and a human smell
    precede us
    as does a wave before a bow

So that to be present is to be indictable

The way an express train may narrowly miss
    a crocus
    a burned-out bus
    a blue mattress

Or: a grimy pair of swans

And, that the line between true and false
    is approximately
    two-to-six inches
So that I do not remember at this time
    may elicit giggles

As well as things that decline on their own:
    onions, sleep, sunlight
The same way a pitcher may be said to possess
    its own lemon and apple:
    mute witnesses

Therefore

There are always two in a room somewhere
    about to pick up their instruments
    viola, recorder
Always a letter aflame by the window
    about to be read
    with your name on it

(A chemical quality to it all, that has all
    but dissolved)

And how everyone is wonderful, everyone
    is ugly or pretty, tame
    or dull
How velocity equals history equals
    the still waters of a canal
    equals Bugs Bunny equals
    a UFO inspector equals blue jeans

Just ask another poor ignorant bastard
    Who's just run off
    with someone else's

     suicidal wife

Bio: Gary Duehr has published poems in Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review.   In 2001 he received an NEA Poetry Fellowship, and his MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop.   Gary's latest book is   "Potato Chips for Dinner: Poems 1984-2004" (Cobble Hill, 2004.)