Four poems from Practice, Restraint

by Laura Sims

 

 

Bank Fourteen

Bank Twenty-Five

Bank Twenty-Seven

Bank Twenty-Nine

 

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Branding a world

In which daisies

Appear as if

You who were

The yard lady

Turn

In the parking garage

 

Your logo

Bearing you

Gravely

 

 

 

Bank Twenty-Five

 

It’s something—

 

Your body, my car

 

Laid down in the tunnel of noise

For a reason

 

 

The white

Half-

Hour

Bank Twenty-Seven

 

A wave fixes

The world

 

One

Playscape

By one

 

*

 

Not here—                       

(Off-screen: mammalian

 

*

 

My place

Agony

Yours

 

 

Is permanent

 

 

Man

 

Bank Twenty-Nine

 

What room

What anchored space

 

Where what

Machine

From time before time

 

Emptied

What man

In the middle of

 

What

 

 

Draperies

 

 

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Laura Sims's book, Practice, Restraint, is forthcoming from Fence Books this fall. Her poems have recently appeared in the journals 6X6, Conduit, Fence, 3rd Bed and 26. She has written poetry reviews for Boston Review, Jacket and Rain Taxi, and an overview essay on Diane Williams for The Review of Contemporary Fiction. She teaches English and Creative Writing in Madison, Wisconsin.

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