The cop holds me up like a fish;
he feels the huge bones
surrounding my eyes,
and he runs a thumb under them,
lifting my eyelids
as if they were
envelopes filled with the night.
Now he turns
my head back and forth, gently,
until I’m so tame and still
I could be a tiny, plastic
skull left on the
dashboard of a junked car.
By now he’s so sure of me
he chews gum,
and drops his flashlight to his side;
he could be cleaning a trout
while the pines rise into the darkness,
though tonight trout
are freezing into bits of stars
under the ice. When he lets me go
I feel numb. I feel like
a fish burned by his touch, and turn
and slip into the cold
night rippling with neons,
and the razor blades
of the poor,
and the torn mouths on posters.
Once, I thought even through this
I could go quietly as a star turning over and over
in the deep truce of its light.
Now, I must
go on repeating the last, filthy
words on the lips
of this shunken head
shining out of its death in the moon-
until trout surface
with their petrified, round eyes,
and the stars begin moving.
(Larry Levis)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Light Poems, Cars PoemsBased on Keywords: posters, envelopes, chews, flashlight, dashboard, neons, junked