Transfer

The guy with the lanyard was talking about

equities and the way the market softens in the fall,

so I stepped back, past the velvet cord,

into the shadow of a landscape I didn't even like.

My hand just went there, a reflex for gravity,

and my knuckle sunk into the horizon line.

It’s a thick, parasitic blue, a Prussian oil

that smells like turpentine and old mistakes.

Now it’s deep in the whorls of my thumb,

and when I try to hold this lukewarm gin

the glass starts to tilt, slick with the grease

of a sky that wasn't even dry yet.