Soot and spit on found paper

after James Castle

I never wanted color

to be color, only

to put things together

in a luminous way.

Swans nest in the rafters

of what you might call

my rich inner life.

Their feathers too soft

for a brush, I sharpen

a stick and singe it

on the stove—this is the

charm, as they say,

of the domestic—

saliva and soot applied

to the ceiling inside

of a matchbox. I’d like

to sketch the word

interiority for you

in charcoal, then add

just a lick or two

of blue. These edges

recede even as I

unfold them, a box

of off-brand cornflakes

torn open into wings,

the persistence of crumbs

in the creases that remain.

II.

Can you refrain

from the word quaint,

remain instead

in the vision of this world

that I have given you—

I’ve taken the labels

from each thing and

peeled them, left only

a papery trace, the

stubborn gum

of the glue. How close

can I bring a given line

to what is in my mind—

even between the

particles of charcoal,

it smudges, the image

is unfixed. How to

create an edge?

I’ve folded down

the cardboard collar

of my shirt, squared off

the corners of my hair.

This is not

the way I see

myself. None genuine

without this.

III.

Let me organize it all

for you: there, and there,

and there, and there.

The tiled floor, the clapboard

walls, my shoebox

diorama of a home.

When was the last time

you watched a door

swing open past

the limit of its hinges

saw the metal strain

against momentum,

pulled the door

back into place.

You might weigh

the density of time

that overlaps inside

a space, every hour spent

loading wood into

the same cast iron

stove, the fracture

of logs into coals

that could crumble,

given time, into

a soot for writing this.

Erika Luckert is a poet, writer, and educator. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA in Poetry, and a recipient of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, CALYX, Tampa Review, F(r)iction, Boston Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Erika is currently a PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.