a feeling that the colors
are not made
for march
for any month, really
the pinging noise of some
correspondence
workday
swings its own mirror
into a minor constellation
you tough out
or touch up the things
to take with you
and smell
the venerable trigger
the feeling of putting your hands
up to the elbow
in a canister of goup – then up
to the neck
the neck
of the canister
its own feeling
a couch-like, but inexact feel - maybe a futon
a convertible
maybe a bad night
folded sofa
you were put by the dry goods
away
a wasp the noise
in the window
three fingers
of light slipped blind
from the refrigerator
door open
a relative
calm sat in the chair, smoke
huge, hugging
the fanblades
they tuned the air
a hot summer storm day
feel prices
right on the teevee
below the rice
a roni, the decimal
place
and come-on-down music
thick air
with our breathing
any link between
humans and their lives
is a germ
the foam memory takes back
from beam to track-lighting
Madonna to candle
snuffed
mood music
an ocean
salts in here, the inner
ear wet
smell of birthday smoke
wax dripping
different
from the memory
of wax
and lost hearing
the position of each membered thing shuffles, tailored by repeat
cigarette in the cold
feeling dragged on
the road
before headlights
sense of standing before
something that could still
to a core
and shout
could fill
all the empty, then take
it
off, full block
faulting engines
gasoline and
a tumble-down
building
licked black
in the beams
the bone-steady feel of punching old snow
and thud of a break free
snap of human-sized ice
running
fast
between houses horns and shouts
asking wrong
feel of the question
face hot-
pressed flat
to the pad
of gym wall
nauseous
quiet side
of the dance
floor and girl
smell close
then gone
the friend feel of too much
video game, vodka-
sick
the yard
a mulch smelled
crawl-space
tic-tac sound of an ignition feeling someone back
from hunting
deer, turkey, dirt
mounds, rabbit, squirrel, tree
slaps
bow slung over right
the arm
pistol probing
a hand
from hip
cardboard cutout
sports figures
hound the night hall
sound of admitting
what scary
carried from sleep
to standing
you in another
room
to make the car start depress the button after
one keyturn
alternate
between pedal
pump
and steady
the pill caught throat
feeling - too much motion
in the back seat
words glow further
along the piney distance
the truth of their low-like scatter
backlight pinpoints
all the lightning
gathered in a jar
to still there, glass
smeared the piano
noise of a radio cat
calling back the year
a licklip of coal
feel the dipstick pressed
for two seconds
down, then pull
and steady hold
a pocket rag
drip-catching the oil
run along the pliable metal
then come home
too late feeling,
come home
less and
less
at all
a feeling, the home
feeling a clear cut path
from the tip of salem mtn
onward scratched
thick with briars –
the power line’s future
a valley cast lot
for chimney powder, light forms
in the tangle
a series of lines
into knots
here
Tony Mancus is the author of a handful of chapbooks, most recently City Country (Seattle Review). With Sommer Browning, he co-founded Flying Guillotine Press and currently he co-curates the In Your Ear reading series in Washington, D.C with Meg Ronan. He works as an instructional designer and lives with his wife, Shannon, and their three yappy cats in Arlington, VA