Poems by Charlotte Lieberman with photos by Alexandra Pacheco Garcia

Bedroom Scene

Looking through this

window, here

the street is desolate.

Also accompanied

by a certain warmth

that is different

than a certain desire

for relief, cold, as in

this sky continuing

to be something

I might choose

not to register

in my image

of what is

outside and here,

almost uncomfortably.

Were it to bleed

from its celestial life,

what vasculature.

How is it that I would

feel being human

then. Light more stubborn

now. It is difficult

to imagine pulses

changing around

me changing me

or themselves to

make me believe

that I can still be

stubborn like the light

by this interesting

sky now

sitting here.

From What 

Acoustics poor

perhaps from what

who can remember

or was it just

that someone was

speaking loudly

nearby, also could

have been

was it the feeling of

having not been

given adequate

space to feel

frustration. Increasingly

obvious was also

that I felt left yes

for longer

than it had been

actually been at

least had it been

really at all –

and had not said so

said any thing, had said no

thing. Was it either,

volunteer toward

making some

thing not happen. Why

don’t we

volunteer this orchid

here spending

summer further

withering, also the way I

pruned it, it can be frustrating

also. Was it. Overly

cautious of

dehydration. Was I.

Late August

Watch it shake

the branch around

the bend. Nothing

elastic about it. Those

cragged cliffs always

looked like

a question always

looking questionably

natural against endless

concrete what was it

our road, never touched

by me also still

automatic in memory like

also along

side the steady percussion

between highway and car. A heart

beat. Sun-

burnt ears. Air hot, heavy

with bodies. Ours.

Our heart

beats. Shut eyelid skin against

window.

Rain

A sound like what

painting looks like

when covering news-

paper. Not simply

poor absorption but

tangled threads of

what make me

consider all things

alongside sounds I am

hearing now

mostly in that space

under the shadow

in my scalp. How do

we maintain

it. Ask me if

it will rain again. Again

this week. The comfort of

a new sound now

again this time the way

that say wearing

a vest gives one only

partial warmth once

it is late enough

in autumn,

soon.

Thin sunlight all

throughout now

compresses these

sorts of afternoons.

Watch morning

approach eventually

as the sidewalk

darkens under each

minute of rain its

successive weight.

September

Fall grass humid

as in wet air

about the rest of

the city but not

as near as

this is it

grass this grass

that is now

covered in

dirt, this dirt

quilting beneath

who is it

but us because we

would sniff the air

if that might make

any sort of

sense now, for

whatever reason, this

dirt too, I

have found it

difficult to

sleep throughout

recent nights, enough

dreaming of

things that escape

quickly enough

to remove themselves

from my

sense of what

is what.

Thing Out 

There is a way

in which this

light is clenched,

some thing is

wringing warmth

from you as in

the way desire drives

me to frustrate water

from a damp cloth.

Almost-night is

now sooner and I

cannot imagine what

it is that you will

go toward in order

to achieve an ideal

vision of abstract

tension. Tend

to it. The sky

tends to do this.

Beneath the give

of leaves, I notice

the willows ready

to snap as if preparing

for use. What is there

besides this. An un-

original answer.

What is off, always still

lingering, always there.

Watch the shifts in

light so closely until

it becomes dark will it

be cloudy and still

you will not figure it or

yourself or me or any

thing out.