plant a moonbeam

The remarkable mole cricket’s body is covered in hair

It’s moving its eyes

There is face paint

And there are gears under the candles like a suspension (of pickerel)

The psychology of minnows

The air is about to absorb this biological sculpture

A nest like a wig

You could have heard a pin drop

I’m not good at meditation

Wild horses, with shining legs, lead to a chronology of meaning

A police car drifts slowly past the house going one hundred

A woman starts speaking and steps out of her robe

Then there’s the dust in the shadow, like the crease of a mail slot

The next thing I know I’m holding a mechanical pencil

It’s right here, I say, but the mapmaker remains unconvinced

Cattle, he says, are easier to work with

The smell of a lake in the summer, I say, as if the body’s denatured

A transference of heat

But I’m leaving out the living (breathing) moment

The way her lungs opened like a drawbridge

A black thread surrounded by blue light

The way the doorknob often turned on its own

The tip of a knife like a series of thoughts that require no effort

The blind wing passing over the egg in each buried bulb

Little triggers, hidden in the grass

—

Originally published in Issue 20 of Apartment Poetry

—

David Dodd Lee is the author of thirteen poetry books, including The Bay
(Broadstone Books) and the forthcoming The 574 Calling Area Has Been Hit
by the Blast (Willow Springs Books, 2026). His poems have appeared or
are forthcoming in Salt Hill, Southeast Review, The Nation, Tampa
Review, New Ohio Review, Ocean State Review, The Academy of American
Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Guesthouse, Copper Nickel, TriQuarterly, and
elsewhere. He teaches at Indiana University South Bend, where he is
Editor-in-Chief of 42 Miles Press, as well as co-editor of the literary
journal The Glacier.