Lisa Fishman is the author of The Happiness Experiment (Ahsahta Press, 2007), Kabbaloom (Wyrd Press, 2006), Dear, Read (Ahsahta Press, 2002) and The Deep Heart's Core Is a Suitcase (New Issues Press, 1998). With Henry Morren, James Fishman-Morren, and Richard Meier, she lives in Chicago and on a farm in Orfordville, Wisconsin. She teaches at Columbia College, Chicago.
Argument
As the bony branches were black against the sky
and as the sky was violet nighttime blue
to fidelity and the gloves removed
As the branches made a veil
like unto bones through which the sky night
time
Before we fell from our ladders through the leaves
a green part of your eye
Before because
not a category (“No cause, Sir, no cause”)
Or the light held out from the branches like a pain
in the elbow, crookd arm with a veil
hung over the arm, being ready
like being ready like grass
under the body under the bones being alive
Under study of the branches the leaves
fell through ladders
the daughter lied: Because
The leaves raked sure
into grass against we lay there, the ungloved hands
of trees in the argument part earth part sky
first published in Conduit