Two Poems

ICEWALKER AND DIRTWORM SWIM IN TANDEM

All his life, Icewalker

has made leaps across enormous canyons

just to feed Dirtworm

single sunflower seeds

and in this way,

Dirtworm has been nourished

for entire winters at a time.

Some days Dirtworm burrows for

miles and miles just for one

glass of water in the middle of a tidal wave.

Some days Icewalker bangs on

pots and pans just to startle

                                                      a cat

he imagines to be a lion.

Dirtworm distrusts Icewalker, and

Icewalker thinks that Dirtworm is a

drag at parties, needlessly pulling

                                                      dead deer

                  to spectacular galaxy bursts

that he doesn’t see because of the

pinprick scope of his focus. Sometimes

Icewalker will get blackout drunk

and send Dirtworm,

                                    squirming and shivering

                  under his blankets,

backwards through a depressive sink.

Dirtworm feels a wild rush:

a mess of confusion

that pulls feather

after feather

every direction outward

and then untangles into

a sharper,

                  clearer tunnel.

TWO WATERS

I.

A bright glacier day

in pinprick cold,

                                    every pin

raining down—

                                    running out

into the breeze and the sting,

dancing slowly, then

                                                      loudly,

then softly,

                  then loudly in the

freezing drought and in the stars.

There are waves in the curse,

droplets in the light. Molecules

passing through an aroma

of thrilling,

                  hot confusion. Galaxies,

speckled sand

                                    flowing downward.

II.

Today is not the day

                  and tonight is not the night

to kiss a stranger

                                                      but really,

there probably won’t be any of those

for a very very

                                    very

long time. It’s warm at the bottom

of an aching river, sitting

                  cross-legged on the floor—

the rushing water

                                    all around

feeling so much like love.

∩

Eric Wallgren is a writer and musician based in Chicago. His chapbook Icewalker and Dirtworm is forthcoming from Community Mausoleum.