BY JOHN BELK
Perry Saturn makes ends meet after a failed tour with New Japan Pro Wrestling
In the solar fields past Barstow
Perry collects birds. Every
morning, stimmed & unconcerned
he wears a welder’s apron & work-
boots, walks among panels 2
hours at a time scooping remains
of avian frames caught between
tower & ground. He smells of
cedar & earth, pungent body oil
& leather & salt. Each bird
is a cloud at the edge of
apocalypse—carbon-black, lit
with fire. Perry scoops them into
buckets, carries them off.
Each one, he thinks,
is a sorry metaphor.
***
Perry takes lunch on a support girder of Ivanpah
Solar Tower 2, carefully unwraps a dry turkey club
with tomato. The plant powers two telescopes &
half the golden valley. Underground are solenoids
& valves—tanks of molten salt that store the sun.
This is what a star looks like up close.
***
Perry puts the remains of a California
gull in his bucket. One of its eyes is still
knowable, its burnt breast wearing the
bulk of its trauma. For a moment he
wants to return it to the beach, dip it
in the soft Pacific & be forgiven for
breaking his mother’s heart. He shakes
the thought. In a bathroom that smells
of cooked meat & acetone he
re-ups & day-dreams of high school
& a time when he wasn’t lonely
& star dust & beach grit & flight
& some far-off future, some
other world of swirling color
& undivided light.
At the top of this space elevator
at the top of this space elevator
I look across the gentle curve of the earth
horizon brought on all fours animal spirit
& a feint of wind orgasmed
crescendo at the top of this space elevator I
release my grip & flutter a silken bow
half-moonsault a scrap of linen cloth
I drink air for breath thin-atmosphered fish
with ribboned fins feathered toward
endless fields a stream a pumpkin patch &
a clump of houses warmed at the edge of a
wood the heart unfurls like a piece of
wound wire I will surely die as
inevitable as this falling I will write
my name in fish trails in a thin October sky
but O that ground that opens before
me O that breathless flight ;
John Belk is an Assistant Professor of English at Southern Utah University where he directs the Writing Program. His poetry has recently appeared in Sugar House Review, Crab Orchard Review, Madison Review, Salt Hill, Kestrel, Worcester Review, Sport Literate, Poetry South, and Arkansas Review among others.