Luke Bloomfield 

What We Were In Relation To Dairy

A wake of cows
We took off through the north country

We were chest deep in nightingales   
Our fingers crept around back blindly

There was a yellow opening in the far off
a bloodshot clutter of speech

We formatted along natural fissures
We pulled fish apart

Our hair grew fast and long
In the periscope a kodiak pawed a mud cliff

The Cherokee broke-­‐down
and then it was 4

Karaoke time  
We were indoors

We burst our bottles on a wooden lip
A flight of prescience we grouped around

Our hearts were open to strangers
We had the bodies of little dogs

We lit a fire in the I.T. office
Hot, plastic keys glowed against the night
 

Watch Me Multiply

You asked me to run
treacherously through the dark.
I called you traitorous
and you cried for the first time
sending me into a tailspin
thirty-two miles above earth.

When you cried it was lonely
like supper in winter, like
pop music in nature.

There are shards of someone’s
cane poking up like tulips,
the day like three thousand miles.

I need to hear the stories
of my friends and enemies
to remember my own.
Your fire story reminds me
of my only motorboat ride
of which I was in command.

At what point do I start
conflating people and dividing
them into different people?
Just kidding, I’ve been doing that all along.

I keep my clothes in a wooden dresser. The dresser belonged to my mother. My mother keeps her clothes in a different dresser now. I've had this dresser since 2004. It's made out of wood with prominent grain. The handles are brass and loud. For a time the dresser was in a professor's barn. For a time it was in an ex-girlfriend's father's garage. In the top drawer I keep socks and undergarments. In the second drawer I keep shirts. In the third drawer I keep pants. In the fourth drawer I keep sweaters. The bottom drawer is broken and is never opened. It's where I keep my souvenirs.

Luke Bloomfield is the author of Russian Novels (Factory Hollow Press, 2014) and the chapbook The Duffel Bag (FHP, 2011). His poems have appeared in jubilat, Barrelhouse, LIT, Forklift, Ohio and elsewhere. He lives in Massachusetts.