Household Fires

here’s to gift-giving
to innocent elephant parades
to shy-unrecognizing
no one noticing
my brother getting married
hats-off to the carriage house
and back again
the will to believe in the will to love
without history or sympathetic nerves
there is no ghost on the trampoline
and time mutters past those who wait
a hand on the clock below the lightening cake
here is to your hand on fire
here is to good will
to not withstanding side connotations
if ever without conversation
there was one bigger conversation that needed to be spoken of
there it goes again
rolling past us
a gentle carpet bomber

………..

we have a staff
a large lab of narrow pain
numbing slowly, then accumulating propulsion
to become as urban of a night as the darkness could take
hand agreeing without hand burning
all rights’ reserved
copy that
and the monstrous force that you have left at the center of a force-field
feels aerodynamic and climbing
a brigade of good-will
low ceilings but mindful ready light
lamp swinging past the window
a stereo crawling by itself

…….

we “accumulate information” but don’t agree on much
without aggression
never becomes stilted
how open this night is
how angelic and eager
the intention to love and be loved hovers over all of us
there is an abundant voice in the back of my head
it tells me look on
the faint eclipse of the aftermath inserted into dilemma
I could die like an unopened hole

….

and also like a well accomplished eagle
we operate at the smooth edges of things
most things we believe in we learn from science
and that is hypothetical
like an ant farm
dizzy with obstruction
giant swarms of ethereal bats
an equation of what flies and whirring crawls
can at the beginning we lie perfectly still?
and wake you, only to bring you back to life
like the freak of transgression
it’s always alarming to be a mistake
and I’ve accomplished hot-molten
the ground that serves to quake

Paige Taggart is the author of three chapbooks DIGITAL MACRAMÉ (Poor Claudia), Polaroid Parade (Greying Ghost Press) and The Ice Poems (DoubleCross Press). A list of publications and her jewelry can be found here.