Three Poems by James Strowman

The anodized sheen

                  of a lift door

is like a wet-wipe to my memory.

I recall the drop down the streamlined

shaft of sibilance, my slip at the thought

of the scalpel as it catches the pulse

of an LED light.

See you on the other side.

No, this side. See you on this side.

RAIN, STEAM, SPEED

‘And yet it moves’

Galileo

Clouds draw like curtains. Look at all the fog

and mist in Turner. Look at the

great industrial machine, or the natural

phenomena breezing through his liquid-

silver veils. The half-clad inferno,

the proxy apocalyptic, impasto sea

spilling to impasto sky.

Turner. Subtle as a fish through the hand.

An aperçu of where yesterday meets

tomorrow, where hare races steam train. Yet,

Turner is a man who knows what he wants.

Shipwrecks and storms, he tells you, gruffly.

Then, like a cloud, he breaks away

scaling the long gasp of fresh terrain.

STROW

for Andrew Strowman

Imagine going all the way to Ellis Island

for the sake of a suffix: -ski or -vinski

gazing through the archive windows

and seeing New York City not as a film

but as an impressionist painting

its many angles endless in the smog.