—   “Primer” by Emily Pérez

From that unbroken sky, we swallow

book, toes, garlic and pomegranate

looking for an exit plan, the great white parting

for a moment only to close once we reach in

And up upon this is like a flash the previously

slow-moving whiteness draws into each other

in a blank pattern of shutting out what we want

what most the opposite of what we want,

Of trees building a canopy, together, conjoining

that unbroken sky of deer, trousers and a music

player. We move past and past and then into

ourselves. There is an entry point we imagine

so a door must be in the forward thought of

what we are having and getting into like being

left behind when no one else notices, the last

human on the planet struggles and spins out

of and into a mere search for buffalo, lions,

a carrier pigeon. What to do next and how to

move from the chair of paralysis when we can’t

get it together in time for even the smallest choice

to come true, for the day of today is like taking

out the trash or returning a phone call. Purple,

broken, aromatic, dark, broken, unobtainable,

other, token, other. This is not night. This is not sky.