Sunset Park Sunset

by Lindsay Turner

Surprise and aspiration are such killjoys:
suddenly the sky turns pink. Once
I had an apple, at the core it tasted
like a pear. These things are inaudible
but they change my throat: I’d say, oh
just let us leave this party or this town, this
preposterous industry and its permanent
haze: so much here is wanting
to be elsewhere, a self-shaped hole
in the permanent haze. Then I dreamed
I crossed the river to the cliffs and the city
on the cliffs, the gondola
turned sideways a little and the river seen
not looking down but looking
sideways from the corners of my eyes was nothing
but the texture of water, not black
not gold and most of all
not blue. All the while the sun
is setting, memory gets more delicate, I shake off
tension as if it were also just
remembered: it’s like holding
a quail egg in your hand, in your closed hand:
you can crush it, you can open your hand
and eat it, you can keep on holding it

Published on April 18, 2011