Toe the Line with Me

American Poetry Review, The, Mar/Apr 2003 by Harvey, Matthea

We needed water & frozen water

for the party. I chose you to two-step

with but the downstairs chandelier

stayed still, its prisms prim.

Consider this: if sunfish

& ducks compete for the same bit

of bread, at any moment their mouths

might meet. That's how my mother

explained the Other, told me to hedge

my bets, furl wish-scrolls into

the topiary. Still I had questions

about Life & the Afterlife. You

looked in through the screendoor.

I sat next to my ex.

MATTHEA HARVEY'S first book is Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Alice James Books, 2000). Her second, Sad Little Breathing Machine, is forthcoming from Graywolf in 2004.