Susanna Mishler

THE AFTERLIFE: IN THE SUMMER HOUSE

A scrap of canvas tacked to the kitchen wall
reads, in Russian and English:
AT THE DARK TIME
PULL OUT THE CORD.

A slim arrow points toward
some lost device that shifts now
in a north coast ice pack, or
was crushed and swallowed

by a flock of Arctic terns
and migrates from pole to pole in
thousands of fibers radiating through
food chains: the broken strings

hanging from closet lights. Lines
that raise half a window blind.

–from Rattle #28, Winter 2007