Dara Wier's new book, Voyages in English, is out from Carnegie Mellon University Press.
She teaches at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.





Wish Inside a Snowstorm

Some big as saucers, going into places
As if on kamikaze missions, some programmed
By invisible hands to tear into the epaulets
On a boy scout's shirt, whizzing through the
Screenmeshes with minds of their own, working
Down into the skinpores under a dog's fur,
Falling into the open pitcher a kid pretends
His mouth is, past a dove's red eye into its
Spiritual drift. Sometimes I think if I could
Say the right word in the right light on the
Right day in the right register, without delay
Or evasion, I would not need to say how we did,
Remember when, we would, back then. Try wren,
Try bush, try wing, what about wet, what about
Skin, what about when there was nothing, when
About to be had just got going and nothing
Intervened. What about talented teeth,
What about who “discovered” the Ice Age?







Shapely, Mutable Subjects

At your fingertips.
Inside a glove dropped near a coatrack,
Kicked, unnoticed, without malice,
Up against a threshold, noticed,
Nearly stumbled over, attached to a doorknob,
Frightening almost, like a hand shot out of
A grave, as if it had passed like smoke
Through a lock and fled, too impassioned
To get where it's going, too deified not to
Have left a glove behind, bursting to get in,
Long before the door has ever opened, removed,
Dropped onto sand in an ashcan in a light rain,
Near a staircase landing around 10:15 in the
Evening, noticed, rescued, placed on a dash-
Board, with music passing through its fingers,
Raced over rivers and plains, illuminated by
Headlights and traffic lights and street lamps,
Match flame, sometimes the hot side of the moon,
Stuffed inside the pocket of an overcoat, tossed
Onto a table, lavished with attention, fitted
Onto hand after hand, object of wild surmise,
Hostage to a thousand intimacies, shield of a
Secret language, hero of half-told rumors,
For the full arc of one late night in December
One great civilization's black leather glove
Epicenter.







Speck of Dust

A breeze, a breeze is keeping us alive
For a while. Thank you, breeze.
Call me anytime you like, call collect,
Call in the middle of the night.
A breeze is keeping me upright.
An aerial view of a breeze lost in a
Maze, in the frozen zoo, how to help
It escape? Now I'm going to make a list
And I don't like it: funeral, funeral,
Funeral, funeral, danger, disaster.
Can you write a complete sentence?
Oh, I'm frightened by my own teeth and
I've been known to run away from my
Fingernails, shuddering and screams,
In equal measures. For this you leave
The sweet breeze stuck in a maze - for
This you wince & whimper, day and night.
Now you must change yourself into a horse
And you will scorch like greased lightning
Through the blindfolded alleys and you will
Take the breeze with you, you will rescue
The breeze and you will take it with you
While you drag the moon through the stars
And your path will be as a fingerstroke
Across a black table.