THE FORM

for Andrea Arnold

Night grass
that twinkles
from earlier rain
pleases the eye
as it shivers under
a girl’s bloody nose
just off the English highway
it’s strange to us both
how our skin never actually touches
except through the congress of magnetism
but does it constitute form
in the way language does?
I left the movie
feeling emptied by resilience
a brilliant emptiness
like returning home
at night
from some
simple day’s journey
but does home
constitute form or magnetism?
I left the house
because it felt like form
was taking over each room
and this life made of stanzas
this little song I made swerving
through them and the night
was more about the girl
crying by the English highway
with the twinkling grass
than it could ever
be about me
the cat purring
and biting
the buttons
off my shirt
an old mobile
of drowsy paper owls
now alert and watchful
over the cramped living room
which is filling with words
as fast as you read them