Power Lines Along the Coast - Poetry Northwest

Photo by Jan Huber

Power Lines Along the Coast

Staff searching for music that doesn’t begin

            Rules for runaway cursive out to the farthest

 edge of the page      The way a person slides

            steadily from her own life   hallway voices

narcotic moon   the bedrail’s horizon

            Faint vibrato down the wire      Headlong

for the waves      The air is full of waves our choir teacher

            said on Saturdays   fixing half notes

 to her metal board   lifting them up   magnetic pills    

 Full of a tune   so mighty   it must be conducted

 diminuendo   as if by stations   as if from under

            the roar of dams      Each pole’s canister laced

by the cord   each cord leashed under eaves   a blistering

            hymn where the last switch hummed      and the throat

was a socket   we opened to sing

- Published in a slightly different form by Poetry Northwest, Summer & Fall 2023