Three Poems by Dara Wier

Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected three poems by Dara Wier for his series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.

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The Investigation

You are a better man than I, I heard myself saying,
Unknowing of why and thus began this investigation.
As far as farther than the earth’s four corners.
Into every inch in every room’s corners always.
As day and night and wind and wave and water and
Weather will let me go with them will I find you.
By means of a liquid a music will I beckon you back.
By means of a lantern. Every bird that is flying is
Ferreting your whereabouts. Every finger is bent
In your direction. Anywhere where it seems nothing
Is there is where you are hiding. Somewhere is
The way we will never stop searching for somehow to find
You. Anything that is growing in any direction is
Going toward you. As am I, your broken down detective.

After You Walked Through Your Own Shadow

How to wave you this way, motion you over, lure you
Nearer. And what to do meanwhile, while we wait to
See what disguise…is that a disguise you next assume?
Broom blocking our path as it dawns, and dawns on us
The floor was already clean. You moved so slowly it was
As if you were still while floors slid under you and we
Froze. It was best for our eyes not to ask them to move.
We saw your eyes, brow, ears and nose, your mouth closed.
Along edges inside creases out of which arises from
The depths, depths, not to be sounded, not to be opened.
Several triangles that you were have landed here.
Days pass. Time reverts to its original chores. There
Is no where to get to where you are. Those we love we
Love no less or more than before. And that is what we fear.

Faithful

You come as close as the skin on my face,
As if you were a sure enough wind for me to walk into.
In woodgrain on a doorframe of a door I walk out of
You wander and I wander within you.
With luciferin, luciferase, and oxygen you light the way.
A mid-summer’s late evening scatters you so
That by midnight all of the stars that surround us
By morning are cresting by curving by blazing.
You’re light that’s passed through my eyes.
I see you in profile as if sharpened and stenciled
Examining creases in the palm of my hand.
Exchanging places in ground fog with black flares.
What is this translucence you’ve dropped between us?
When will some sure enough wind arrive to blow this curtain aside?

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Dara Wier’s book You Good Thing (Wave, 2013) is among The Believer‘s 2013 readers favorite books. Other books include the book length Revers Rapture (Verse, 2005) (S.F. Poetry Center 2006 book of the year selected by Stephen Rodefer), Voyages in English (CMU 2001) and a chapbook, A Civilian’s Journal of the War Years (Song Cave, 2011). She’s an editor for factory hollow press, a member of Flying Object, and teaches poetry workshops and seminars for University of Massachusetts Amherst’s MFA for poets and writers. She lives and works in North Amherst, Massachusetts.