Joyelle McSweeney

Joyelle McSweeney [voca]

from Joyelle McSweeney’s The Commandrine and Other Poems:

Demos

We wheeled the volcano from state to state.

From the ash we fashioned vistas.

We relished effluvia. At those extremes,

we lived without differentials.

Ourselves, others. We salvaged the heatseekers

and cast off the weaponry. Bacteria

swept the ocean like decimals, barcoding the currents.

The reef disbanded and was reassembled

in the bays of a converted bomber. Launched

into the paunch of the storm, our meters

not only monitored but analyzed it.

The black clouds were deseeded and reined in.

At the hangar, there was a curling

in the pages of the manual, an inner

complication, an ever-paisling structure

making inroads in the pods. With the tips

of our toes we could almost

taste it, we could almost put our finger on it