valërea ing in the crabapple orchard

by Zev Levinson

Valërea Ing gives up on singing

Ducks beneath enamelled symphonies

Dreams of a village on the far-off mountain

And forgets she dreams a thing

There is no village, no bridge, jack-o-lantern

Just a whisper upon the black brick road

A story that wants to come true

Closed and wavering code fringing legibility

Poised with feet not stomping

She supposes herself a cat

Dresses in an autumn saunter

La-las as the voice of the understood

Sing, somebody says

She jokes she can’t

Can only ing

Murmurs wittily Don’t you know I’m

Miss Ing?  In truth Miss Ing

Is missing something or someone

She needs an ear and overreaches

Mouthing into the microphone empty space

Announcing daily herself and the lost rainbows

So demeanor will twist upon itself

What is meant to be loved turns lament

Valërea now overnamed overnames the sacred

Here comes the heathen kibosh

The unpeeling of all first edges

An insinuation of softness

Until soundwaves drip residue

Ah the wolf in her heel

And the days go plunk

Plunk violin made of tin

Plays Oxidized Overture of Seeming

Won’t anybody quiver?  This perpetual curdle of milk

Deafens a would-be audience

Deadens anticipation, tunes her way out

Solitary as chamomile tea

Even a classical crowd respects whiskey

Spars with the occasional nightmare

Reckons the drone of cicada

Forgives frenzied notes of genius

Val—no, quiet insistence on Valërea—

Intones her orange Formica narcosis

World within walls

This is why we must be dream

Ing

Photo of Zev Levinson

BIO: Zev Levinson is the author of Song of Six Rivers and The Sauntering.  He teaches with California Poets in the Schools, has taught at Humboldt State University and College of the Redwoods, is a Redwood Writing Project teacher-consultant, and a founder of the Lost Coast Writers Retreat.  See ZevLev.com