Remembering, I Hazard a Guess a portion of ocean walking a tree is a portion of ocean knifing into the sky the small light speaking in tongues after the body wasting for return of the council threshing for the ocean salary of undoing bales of photos mounted on the wall quiet paths mounted on the wall demand exceeding the height of the silos a balloon of ocean

walking lying on the roof at night tying leaves back from view

let me put it in terms you will understand: a row of violets your hand on the chopping block they said she would understand the lack of spring the drought in her garden the juniper dust in her garden the bay hurting next to our skin

you always know him but for the white coat one eye will turn toward the referent contracting into a tiny pebble of glass the air between the glass and liquid will churn the air between the ground and sky will follow you don’t understand people who take this seriously who die this way seriously the forest is long and full of noise

The injustice next to the restroom where three separate mistresses know each other in theory, adopt affectations of flowers and cigarettes, but enjoy their skies blue like many hopeful people. Clouds drawn on walls next to beds, by houseplants from the grocery store, idling by a tiger lamp and soviet coasters. In a suit a strong handshake, harboring the tensions of professionalism in cavities of the body on the radio, the voice disenchanted, “Thank god,” they’d say when the acoustics seemed revelatory, when he settles next to the record player, covered in his skin, maybe in the morning after ordering whiskey, “Neruda sucks” etched on the bathroom wall waiting for the fear to pass to terrorize the pool table pluck an image from the beery air waiting to know where we’ve found ourselves, to tell everyone the color of their eyes, a hand at the base of their kindness.

Alex Niemi lives in Russia. You can read some of her other writing and translations in Prelude, Asymptote, Dusie, Banango Street, Action, Yes!, and other journals. Her translation from the French of Vincent Tholomé's The John Cage Experiences is forthcoming from Autumn Hill Books.