Joanie Mackowski

Definition

 

As the staghorn beetle with calipers

growing from the bony plate of its head, 

nestled among the leaves of the staghorn

 

sumac raising its concentrated flames as if 

to set the sky on fire: I shall pluck you with

the jaws of my brain. As if to focus on you

 

smears me out of focus: my aperture

narrows and my apogee widens toward

the horizontal eightball. You will never pry

 

my cold dead fingers from this

vanishing point. Who would

roll a strand of suns against

 

the teeth to know it's real? To heave

the universe through a lexical birth 

canal one Italy at a time, circling quarry

 

amid the lake's upended sky?