Soul

By Ellen Wehle

She has left the city of bones

Would rather inhabit
Clock-hollows

Blows out lit pilots
Say we remember the hurtling

Forward every pulsebeat
A path through thorns

If only we could name that keyhole 
Inside us, asterisk she

Enters, exits, depth
Charge lighting the waters

She moves ever

One breath beyond us
Elevator chime sounding night’s 

Coal chute, our voices
Telegraph-clicks, whiteout

Descending she leaves body
A bank-vault

Laid bare without
Her how else to explain all winter

Struggling to rise beneath
My own weight

—First appeared in Washington Square

Houdini Escapes

By Ellen Wehle

Black lacquer boxes
Slow-fuse cannons
Crates nailed tight

Not even a scratch
Just keeps returning
In padlocks in iron

Cuffs dragging his
Secret behind him
That steamer trunk

Loaded with bricks
Flung in East River
Jack-in-the-pulpit

He pops from a milk
Jug a humongous
Milk jug flanked

By two English
Bobbies such a calm
Stare straitjacketed

Hung by the heels
Over Broadway
Can’t you see yet

Where we’re headed
Chained to a great
Locomotive he says

To his wife Open
Your mouth he says
On his deathbed

He says With a kiss
I’ll pass my key
From the black box

Maw of the cannon

—First appeared in Washington Square