He presses into your fingers a box of matches

Abstract

He presses into your fingers a box of matches Jeffrey Levine (bio) He presses into your fingers a box of matcheson which is printed the name and address of a certain bar.In one direction the street vanishes into total darkness,in the other, a diffused blue-gray light makes visiblea block of low buildings which descend like smaller blockscut into granite and converge in the gloom where the streetcurves away, while thousands of feet above, an attenuated fingerof cloud, no longer visible, points across the line of the curveand reddens, and a cool, salty wind blows along the street.Inside the bar, a gathering of art students plus a crowdof music types and a trio of mystics occupy a spacelarger than the space in which they stand, their faces burninglike molten gold, as if they have heard the First One’s voice,burning like the face of Moses listening for the soundhe’ll not again hear, and mirabile dictu, in the cornerunder the only window and looking like he hasn’t sleptthere’s a Caravaggio impersonator sketching with penciland grey-brown ink and some sort of blue wash on coarsepaper what might or might not become MosesClosing the Waters of the Red Sea Over Pharaoh’s Hosts,thought until now to be anonymous. You find yourselfin that drawing, gawking over what’s happening belowto Pharaoh and his Host in the crushing waters,and even as you think, there but for the grace of God,you cannot remember your own bedroom, notthe clichéd Van Gogh on one wall, nor the Kathe Kollwitzself-portrait over the bureau, nor the voice of the manyour father calling one last time for his shoes. [End Page 153] Jeffrey Levine Jeffrey Levine’s most recent book is At the Kinnegad Home for the Bewildered, Salmon Poetry, 2019. His many poetry prizes include the Larry Levis Prize from the Missouri Review, the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the Ekphrasis Poetry Prize, and the American Literary Review poetry prize. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Levine is founder, Artistic Director and Publisher of Tupelo Press. Copyright © 2021 Pleiades Press