JOSHUA RIVKIN
New Direction
The film spins. Light’s needle touches, and doesn’t.
A piano cues. Wide shot. A yellow vase on the bookshelf.
Our bodies through the apartment’s window frame:
a swallow on the ledge, a taxi’s passing horn
(the building torn down later that year)
you walk towards me
your bare feet gathering the floor from the floor
edge of your shirt at the shoulder, skin—
Focus, you dumbfuck,
a man calls from the next-to-last row.
Nothing clear about it.
Focus, which is to say clarity
means it just happened just like this
and I’m lucky for seeing blinds raised at an angle
your small unpainted toes
your hand touching my neck. Your open hand.
My open neck.
This ain’t what I paid for.
Where’s the action? Car crash, girl on girl, give me
something to remember.
I keep it happening, slow it down
Frame Forty-Five-and-a-Half.
Let each finger
press their finger weight, some force to skin
that can be outside and deeper like ice on the glass.
The film spins, light’s needle touches, and doesn’t
let me go. 