Jason Labbe
Dying of Sunsets
(or, Anatomy of a Flamethrower)
Have I ever shown you polaroids of these back woods,
which two trees pin between them the sun going down, blood
orange devastating every leafless void, the coldest evening of the year?
I still can’t find a song to fill this empty room, no fingerpicked
blues, no brushes slow across a snare head, no upright’s low tone.
Are you receiving this transmission of dusk splitting open, or is my call
breaking up? How golden is memory? I split a whole tree
into firewood. I split a tree on fire with a song in my head,
embarrassing to tell you which. Take a guess—arrange on the floor
all your thrift store records removed from their ring-worn jackets.
In my palm, another clue: a voice without a mouth, a dance
missing a body, the meaning of the universe in a crystalline signal
without a mind to care. The answer is the color of flames
dying out between the branches, a little song that goes like this.
Everybody
night ices the windshield dawn is spent scraping
darkness flurries the drive to work and nothing glitters
not even the blood drop from a split knuckle from
a no-use past am I repeating myself waking with a gut-knot
worsened by coffee by absence my worry won’t
float off as breath mixing with tailpipe exhaust am I
repeating myself looking for you where you are not
hood-up back stiffened and bent a little at the hip heavy
branches glassy and pierced by the first rays peering
through a low oval the defroster huffs clear am I repeating
myself picturing your commute on roads I don’t know
smoke mixing with clouds over the San Gabriel Mountains
you dodge a truck like mine stalled at a light and swerve
the instant I merge with everybody on the interstate
Jason Labbe is the author of two books of poems, Maps for Jackie (2020) and Spleen Elegy (2017), numerous chapbooks, and recent work appearing or forthcoming in VOLT, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Antiphony, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. He is the editor and publisher of the poetry magazine HERE, now approaching its fourth issue. Also a musician, producer, and recording engineer, he has contributed to recent or forthcoming albums by Zachary Cale, Animal Surrender!, Slant of Light, and Ajax Caravan. jasonlabbe.info.