Daniel Coudriet

Light Never Dandelions

I don’t need access to multiple clouds.
The way you unfold, arrondissements,
you are my scarf. You want
to be a mist I’ve wandered.
I’ve missed you. In here the world
is made of words moving around
& doing things to each other.
Half of my face is a window
in a stairwell. I don’t recognize
the t-shirts walking through me.
The leaves haven’t changed.
The leaves will change
& I will drink them.
We weren’t in rooms
above each other.
What if I blanket the bread?
She’s taken my music with her
to stay in the hotel naming
the city. Even now the trains
through the rain. We’ve named
our subways for victories.
Your fingernails are an abbreviation.
When I breathe in heavily
there are jellyfish. You answer
yourself with Christmaslights
around a table. It is our country.

Daniel Coudriet lives with his wife and son in Richmond, Virginia, and in Carcarañá, Argentina. He is the author of Say Sand (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010) and a chapbook, Parade (Blue Hour Press, 2012), which can be read here. His second manuscript of poetry, Lost Parade, was recently named a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry, for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Open Competition, for Omnidawn’s 1 st /2 nd Poetry Book Prize, and for Brooklyn Arts Press’s Open Reading Period. This poem comes from his current manuscript-in- progress, Museum People. His translation of Argentinean poet Lila Zemborain's Rasgado was awarded an NEA Fellowship, and his poems and translations have made recent appearances in Colorado Review, Court Green, Denver Quarterly, Green Mountains Review, jubilat, OmniVerse, Transom, Washington Square, and elsewhere.