Two poems by Nate Maxson

Archaeology

Each object that survives us
That survives our consumptive affections
Our blue-flame greed
Balances in perfect Newtonian opposition
There’s no removing the counterweights
Even if you can’t see them
Pressing into the green world
Not weight but the shadow of weight
They’re too rusted
Too close
These delicate weld lines
These pearls in time
Counting down
Numbering away
The Earth and the Moon
The tides and the sea
All of them
Wind on the grasslands
Breath to ember
An early miracle
A cause and an effect
A sound and a light
From highways run with ghosts and smoke
And family dogs kicked to freedom
In the pupal nation:
Its black veins morphing into wings
Its scrubbed white, all night diner floors
The after-scent of gasoline
I talk about the labyrinth like the revolution
As a cure for youth
For all the conquerors
Wrapped in rippling imperial sleep-shirts
For runty apples left on the branches past the harvest
Rattling as if alive to the coming frost
Where there were dandelions sprouting from the cracks
Where there were computer screens and leather chairs
In dusty rooms with the shades drawn
Where there were Kaddish prayers and mousetraps
What’s left?
The wind
The wind
The wind
What we saved from the fire
And what we offered to the flood

Astronomy

Sleep is all
Sleep is all
The reward
The snow over
A dormant wasp nest
Light is a weak force
Like gravity
An exception
To the black hole
At our galaxy’s heart
Yellow grass inhales the wind