Amaina

by David Wolf

_

the wild dogs of Santiago

the sleeping dogs of Santiago

the Andes disappearing into lavender haze

~

smoke pouring from the palace—
“you and your pisco-washed plowings”

Dreamt an amaranthine bloom adrift—
as autumn’s ore unearths itself once more

A huaso stomp wakes me
from my facsimile of ease—

I was once fierce as
the Valley of the Moon

Now I’m coco loco
trailing the horsefly’s glint, the prawn’s shadow

Call me a taxi
while the lamb trembles beneath the volcano

My old ideas splay, a fern,
a dead fern and

I’ve no ray of ministry
to distress the long queue of grief

Sure, I’ll lead the coalition
of trash

Tip the potter,
don’t tip the potter

In a thin country
wearing your summer fat

dream a razor clam or two
for me

~

Wacky trident of a
lone cactus shooting up
from the sloped vineyard—

“Syrah, Syrah, glamorous nymph with an arrow and bow”

~

Humbolt Air

Noon autumn light
peach-veiling
the village across the bay

and the stilted feet
free to flee to their resurrected cribs
(terror of quicksand glowing through the mesh)

I fill the pitcher I requested from the hotel maid with amused swirls of disappointment

The giant sugared rock in the sea below my window
is not a cream puff—
“that’s seagull shit”
draping it

Night will kill off more castings—

I’ll sleep

till the ocean lines

blue dawn


David Wolf is the author of three collections of poetry: Open Season, The Moment Forever, and Sablier. His work has appeared in The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Hiram Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Poet & Critic, River Styx Magazine, and numerous other literary magazines and journals. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa, and teaches writing and literature at Simpson College.

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David Wolf
David Wolf is the author of five collections of poetry, Open Season, The Moment Forever, Sablier I, Sablier II, and Visions (with artist David Richmond). His work (poetry, nonfiction, and fiction) has appeared in numerous literary magazines and journals, including decomp, Cleaver Magazine, The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, Poet & Critic, and River Styx Magazine. He is also the literary editor for Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts.