swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

a mind’s trapeze
Marc Vincenz

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About Those Pearls

She wore them in that way, you know. “With a long
neck you can’t go wrong,” she always said.

“But mostly you need to work toward the flame,” she
also said fingering the little white eggs on her long
neck.

I knew what she meant, but I couldn’t be sure if that
was a metaphor or the ice cubes ringing in my glass.

Thinking of her, I fingered an ice cube and said,
“Look at it this way: a dangling metaphor doesn’t
have to be dead.”

Before We Continue

Within this circumstance, sewn into your seven
Pockets you will find our real intentions.

The absolute glorifies the mental status
Of the who and the how, the where and when,

All by the rule of thumb. A mind’s trapeze
Dancing on the breathing; not there, here.

In the dark woods you may see your spine
Growing into its several selves, at least until

The last form becomes a walk in late summer.
And a rose awakens babbling in the wind;

These lovers understand these moments
As if they might be eternity. The right rib

Pines for the fig leaf, the yin and yang diverted,
The united put asunder. The absolute demands

Yet more, more than the poet’s code, all those
Cosmic rhymes, the notes of a psychic violinist,

The soldier in her discharge, the fool in his ballad,
All humanity in her scarlet garters … All that

Gliding, that sensuous form that commands
The this-will-be-some-time; how the blood

Warms, how the cheeks flush, how it all turns
And how they fling themselves into the dirt.

The Years Fly By

A short
dash—
a run-
on luck.
A can-
ned
man
in a lot
of tuna,
in tune
with,
tuned to,
turned too,
a lot of
time
where
a short
dash—
is a run
on luck,
where
the can-
ned
man
exhales &
brings his tin
to the con-
densation
point.
Here,
attuned to,
turned into,
a lot
of time, im-
moral, im-
mortal,
bipedal,
that short
dash—

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Marc Vincenz is an Anglo-Swiss-American poet, fiction writer, translator, editor and artist. He has published over 30 books of poetry, fiction and translation. His work has been published in The Nation, Ploughshares, Raritan, Colorado Review, World Literature Today and The Los Angeles Review of Books. He is publisher and editor of MadHat Press and publisher of New American Writing.