James Reiss
Writing
Crystal
from The Breathers
originally appeared in The New Yorker
A man wets his forefinger with his tongue and holds
up a perfect water glass, empty and glistening.
He is sitting at a table in a large
hall with other men in identical blue
blazers with eagle medallions over their breast pockets.
Now the first man fingers the glass
rim, tentatively, as if it were jagged-edged.
And now he strokes it clockwise, slowly, stopping
to wet his finger again and again, like an old
man paging through a book—until the glass
comes to life with a thin, high whine like nothing
he has ever heard, and the others look up in amazement, catching
on, holding up their glasses, too, wetting and stroking
them clockwise like ice skaters in unison.
All the glasses are coming to life now; their throats are
slowly catching fire, glistening with a thinner,
higher whine than any bird. It is like a pitch
pipe with wings. It is something like the music each
man heard when he stepped outside at night
for the first time alone as a boy. Then
there was nothing in the sky but stars and music.
And the sky was like glass.
Cycle
from Ten Thousand Good Mornings
originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly
What why when where who
I crush my wedding glass beneath my shoe
In with from to at
I kiss my bride & cry Jehoshaphat
Five three four two one
I father daughters & entomb a son
Minsk Flint Perth Seoul Rome
I travel far to find myself at home
Large squat thin fat small
I greet a stranger in a shopping mall
Taste touch smell hear see
I lose my wife my gentle Melanie
I take my life & shake it by the hair
Who what why when where