Dan Beachy-Quick

[The grass is and isn’t some flame’s waiting bed—]: from Romanticisms

Listen to Dan Beachy-Quick read his piece:

The grass is and isn’t some flame’s waiting bed—
I saw the nude bride lean back in the grass,
Legs askance, one hand holding above her head
A lantern, a waterfall, the illuminating gas.
Her face fell outside the frame. Those flowers
Leaned in the direction she’d look, if she had eyes
To look, she’d look in the direction those flowers
Pointed, sky-ward arc that bends, arc that in dry
Earth ends. My eye hurt from all its dumb looking.
My dumb eye in its hurt looking. I like
To think I made this choice to not open
The door, even if the door had no knob, I like
To think I made a choice to put my hand
On my throat to hear my throat as my own.

Dan Beachy-Quick is the author of two recent collaborations, Work from Memory (with Matthew Goulish, Ahsahta, 2012) and Conversities (with Srikanth Reddy), as well as the book of essays and tales, Wonderful Investigations (Milkweed, 2011). He teaches in the MFA Program at Colorado State University.