Nathan Hauke

Anatomy of Desire

Streams of blue layer sky and
smoldering holes of sunlight

          in the deep, dense bodies

of maples. Sketching torsos
out of a medical book, the boy in the corner tends to "the practice of
drawing things exactly as they are"-as if this
is even a possibility. Outside: sparrows-as always-impossible
to sketch exactly. Running water streaks on asphalt

running like a mirror to have and to hold a silver Ford wagon
and splotches of clouds; desire for form opening
our mouths, we find we are joined in slipping, yellow-green

          tints of grass. Practically, to speak practically as
          a citizen-


Martha and the Vandellas on the building
speakers: "Nowhere to Run." There's

          nowhere to run exactly. When a woman crossing the street left
          yells at her dog, the anger of her voice

shakes through me

like a cluster of metallic graduation balloons.
          A white arrow winds the corner of the Dayton/Cooper Tires
building through bushes pointing to a bricked up window.
There's nowhere to run. Park Here, but only if

you are buying tires. A distant bicycle's reflectors catch light near
a house, near a deck and

          two sparrows wind upward in blue sky

          over the street, disappearing

in a blur-


My love closes the door (and moves
across the porch a few seconds later

          and down the steps to the car a few seconds later).
          An hour or so after this, I see a white,

oval-shaped mirror

          that I think she would like in an antique shop
we can't afford to shop in, write this down to remember to tell her.
Write this down and I unfold in wave after wave of

          deep black water-


Saturday morning, wealth equals fractured promise; wealth
owns me and I want to eat everything. When I
pretend we are rich tourists we can pretend buy things

          for each other, we can
          wind upward in blue sky.

          Wealth equals flight and we are free falling, swimming
against the current. After the first blush of sin
comes its indifference-


It's hard to imagine selling out being sold out

being rich, but it is easy to imagine
that mirror hanging in our living room. It's hard
          to imagine anyone being rich and being a good person.
I keep thinking of George Bush, an
unselfconscious rich lady and her kids walking through the floor

Mark is mopping at The Vogue. Thus, we are made to eat shit to
          pay homage to and support our own meanness-


Layered shadows of trees bob in bricks; are we-could we
ever be-two sparrows? Coleridge flips open
          in wind and his words flicker, disappearing
in a blur. One must be an imaginative tone, spirit which fuses

each to each in a "balance or reconciliation

of opposite or discordant qualities," and that government

          which governs least-the interior-Cold spring wind is getting colder.


          Nowhere to run, everywhere
to buy a coffee, a few books, and/or
a new shirt to wear to one of the weddings we are going to

this summer. Even the impulse for disobedience dividing the

individual-Narrative of capital absorbs form of resistance,

dividing the forms of
our faces-


                    Silver inside
a torn bag of chips sparks in the street
opening sunlight and more sunlight. Or best not at all-
          Eat; sleep bittersweet summer, layered

dreams of things-wave after wave-we want, we
feel we need for
each other. Each, but each moment losing
integrity. There's nowhere to run. Best not at all-when friction comes to
have its machine and oppression and robbery are organized

          let us have the machine
no longer-


When the boy who has been sketching torsos
walks out with his sketchpad

under his arm, I wish he would come back

                    and show me his sketches. It's hard to imagine feeling
that safe that confident, owning an exact copy of anything. That which

          governs least this moment, this interior is best. It's hard
          to imagine starting over with a model or

an exact copy in mind. It's hard to imagine the opposite of
"mildly socially autistic," a torso including broken gold shreds

          of cloud, the ripple of laughter

          erupting down a corridor-


Speakers: Dell Shannon: "I Go To Pieces." An American flag
streaming over shops downtown-

          Sunlight opening in a bag of potato chips-Metallic balloons
for a graduation bouncing and

                    twisting in blue wind

                    over a staircase-