lovers asleep

by joyce carol oates from women whose lives are food, men whose lives are money

half the continent sleeps between us.

half the population has leapt into costume,

a cluster of selves that rolls our eyeballs

     to exhaustion. . . .

how strenuous we know it, the innocence of sleep!

forbidden by the midwestern plains

to know each other, nevertheless

we drift into each other:

we overlap somewhere west of kansas city --

sharing a costume, an angel to be thrown to earth,

the impulse of the abyss.

after sunset

by joyce carol oates

from women whose lives are food, men whose lives are money

broken walls of waves

said to be the atlantic

sweep toward us

wave upon wave

so much is breaking

so much is happening

for centuries, here,

so much has happened

unrecorded

irretrievable

droplets of water

bubbles of bright flesh

we stand here

hypnotized

again and always

and once again, again,

hypnotized out of flesh

jarred by the earthquake

of the sea

we are waiting

for something

we are waiting

for something to record

how icy the shock on our bare feet!

a hundred yards away a vendor sells

stickers for the bumpers of cars:

the proclamation of the achievement

of the replication of--

the recording of--

we are waiting

again and always

and again, again,

stalkers of meaning

human and cold

there are those who die

by joyce carol oates

from women whose lives are food, men whose lives are money

there are those who die and are shoved

from us    there are those who die and are

given new names    there are those who die

and their dried nests burnt    there are those

who die but never leave the house    there are

those who die but curl beside us yawning and warm

there are those who spring into our fingertips

who live on a butterfly’s ingenious wings

whose shouts echo across the choppy river

there are those who die and are walking

with the sunlight across the room

there are those who die and are exiled

those who are held aloft in cages

those who scuttle with rats

those dragged from the harbor faceless

those whose unprotesting veins are opened

there are those who die but send messages

shredded and rainstained

held trembling in someone’s hand