Nathan Stabenfeldt

Against Entropy

in the grains of my hands
preserved in salt
 
the maze of a room with everyone in it
such impossible elegy
 
that particulate waves
move through us
 
mostly vegetable now
our bodies filled with starlight
 
both particle and wave
our hands have reached
 
for torches in the dark
fire is fire
 
the parachute deployed at the moment of impact
another word for I love you
 
in eternal return
the helicopter blade
 
what you have been told
you have been told before
 
below the surface of the ice
the breathing hole has frozen shut
 
tusked and dark
in burlap, a song

---

Languor Angels

was it green eyes flecked with gray
or gray eyes flecked with green
 
you know bloom is another name
for a school of jellyfish
 
and do you remember what happens
in the dream the shadow goes by
 
in the time it takes the brain
to flip the image right side up
 
because there’s an answer
to every question but one
 
that’s the whole point of the doorframe in the desert--
no surprises on the other side
 
I want to do something generic like
answer the telephone
 
a stimulating conversation
on the most relevant of issues
 
parentless clouds destroy themselves
and what have you done for me lately?
 
the last words of an infamous playwright
remark the simple pleasure in peeling an orange
 
the way a daisy can blossom from the barrel of a gun
or a tiny flag with words



--
Nathan Stabenfeldt is an MFA candidate in poetry at University of Houston and Nonfiction Editor for Gulf Coast Literary Journal. He was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana. Before moving to Houston he studied writing and philosophy at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. His poetry has appeared in DMQ Review, among other places.