ShardAuthor(s): Laura NicholsSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Summer, 2001), p. 94Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20154916 .

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Shard

This is a party

fingers inching down the glass bottle's beaded neck

aluminum cans thrown off the roofs edge

the sUp and clamor of foot traffic

Dust catches itself in suspension like the freeze-frame of an action film

It is an amber Ught

(Ught's fiber) I'm told

that whiskey with its firm brown grip is the only honest handshake anymore

There is no path from any angle to the Swan Nebula

from this city roof

only the blank-hour ch?l

and gravel scuttling under my knuckles

I see the television's convex screen as graph paper

the news reporter's microphone black ink attacking the page

buUets smaUer rubs of graphite

aUgned in an arc of parallax

Tonight the pen's ink dries quickly there is no line of sight to the Swan Nebula

94

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