Light Side of the Moon



     I'm a voyeur, a little bit, but the best view is to be outside and look in a window and see nothing inside because sun through another window has glared the glass opaque. I know a light that comes on at dusk where a gravel road meets the blacktop: I stand surrounded by wide darkness and still cast a shadow. I'd like to find the line where I no longer see the glow looking straight-on, but only through peripheral vision. Even more, I'd like to find the line where even peripheral vision picks up nothing, but my eyes shine whiter—I'd need a friend to help. I think the creation of the world should have happened on a late January afternoon at the moment when wind-strung spider silk ignites and strands wave out, wave out, not yet latched. That should have been the first moment, anyway. Probably the creation itself was more eruptive. Twice this week I've opened a door and walked into a kindling shimmer, the fluorescent bulb bubbling like a lava lamp on amphetamines. Both times, I felt more alive when I left.








Space (Finite)



     A chart of the kitchen floor: a Triangulum of spiders in the corner, a Serpens Caput of ants trailing out from under the refrigerator. The horizon is the second circle. My nose, mouth, and navel are slightly out of line: Aries. The center of gravity in double stars is often inside one of the stars, as the center of gravity between the earth and the moon is inside the earth. My right pupil pulls in a fraction toward my left. The eye is the first circle. But the epidermis contains melanin, found also in the retina's pigment; some nerve endings glint with reflective nuclei. My skin is an eye. I repeat my one prayer: don't let it open.







Solar Flare



     I turned on the flashlight to see if it was time for it to be light yet. I've never liked those stringy threads left over after you peel a banana. A rainbow of fat streaming out between the eyes—this may be the meditation that attracts Americans to Buddhism. The hiss was low enough that I couldn't tell if I was hearing anything other than the static of my own listening.







Aries



     “The artist's job is to propel the century a few inches.” I'm trying, I'm trying. This has moved it a few seconds.











Mark Cunningham received an MFA from the University of Virginia, and he still lives in the Charlottesville area. Poems have appeared in BathHouse and Past Simple. Two chapbooks are around, one on parts of the body on Mudlark's site and one on household objects, titled Second Story, on Right Hand Pointing's site. Forthcoming from Tarpaulin Sky Press is a book currently titled Body Language, which will include two collections, one titled Body and the other titled Primer.






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