The look I am hunting: the one

that through color and cut glares

the starer into a skull or a skein

of lightning, a switch

stalled at dawn, or the gloaming

along an equator. What fascinates

I shine like flame-blackened foil,

a rhinestone snoring at lake bottom,

a wreck's brass-bound astrolabe,

bright as hard tender, newly minted,

mewling and naked under

oil-slick pleather sieving light,

prism-like, my limbs sing their siren

song, pull ribbons of pure note over

the pack's snarl and bark, teeth pop,

dangling chain of saliva snaps—

deep under, I stay

seamless as a safe, a rust-sealed letter

box, corroded pill case, my insides

scoured to looking glass

by a tangle of wind trapped,

a cyclone circling the space

the size a doll's eye makes,

panting my small breath.

**

This poem is the winner of the 2019 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize. APR awards $1,000 and publication to a poet under 40 years of age in honor of the late Stanley Kunitz's dedication to mentoring poets.