SECOND FREQUENCY

[I]

Where I spent my life, I spend my life.
The spell recedes,
I pitch a tent. I squint at wind.
I came to see what I could.
I thought it was a dog
until it was a frog & there were two

between the divots
by the nightshades. Within
the lens of my eye
sized 10 × 5, I left to see
what I could see.
A knot undoes under a wave,

sheep bolt beneath a gust of other
sheep, then switch;
this is their sentence, old as hills.
Back against a corner
the only thing I do is days
until I make a mess of one

& disappear it. If I can’t see it
beginning, it must have happened
off-stage. Thresholds
make a given pace to ascend to
& make do with, or don’t.

[II]

Take note: an assignment
once seen through
might reassign itself
to you. Hold your breath
& I will show you
not that what I do is impossible,

more so, that what I do
is difficult. Whenever Harry
Houdini performed
“The Milk Can Escape:
a double-fold death”
locked in a water-filled can

in a thick wood chest,
he credited the discipline
of static apnea
for warming his lungs.
There’s no telling time
from an uncalculated space

where an ‘adherence to’ is not
a ‘certainty in.’ I wanted you
to hold my glance
as I fainted in the middle
of the word.

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Originally published by us

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Gilad Jaffe’s recent poems have appeared in Bennington Review, mercury firs, POETRY, and The Yale Review, among others. He teaches at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, and serves as a senior editor at Conjunctions.