Theories of Non-Violence
By Sandra Beasley

A frightened rabbit kicks its hind legs so hard that it can

break its own back. Someone thought to record that pain

on tape. Someone said Shelve this under non-violent tactics.

Just a line item, buried in daily reports from the siege:

after blasting Ozzy Osbourne and dentist drills, before using

flash bombs and gunfire, they played Rabbit death scream.

Repeat loop. Officers wrote the wail was like a teakettle’s whistle,

but endless. My father, in uniform, used to speak of war

in terms of the sword and the scalpel. Scalpel, meaning we kill

only who we meant to kill. Meaning, clean. Meaning, better.

Sword, meaning we kill anyone who gets in the way.

Even now, watching news of each new explosion, I wait

to see if our flag flashes onto the screen. If not there’s that tiny,

cool blink. Well then. An old lover calls to tell me they finally

made him a doctor. First do no harm, they made him swear.

Then they said To save that man, you’ll need a sharper knife.

“Theories of Violence” first appeared in FOURSQUARE and is forthcoming in “Theories of Falling” (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2008).

You
By Sandra Beasley

You are the whole building on fire.
You are the voice of sirens. You are
the dumb crowd milling, the capture
of Weegee's lens. You are flames
licking up the escape. You’re the hovering
of a mother at the cliff of her window ledge.
You are the choice to drop her baby.
You’re the chance of a beckoning crowd,
six hands gripping a sooty raincoat. You
are the only option. You’re a simple drop.
Ten stories below they pray you’re like a cloud,
soft floating. You are like a cloud. Grey
and you don’t hold anything. You are
that moment before a falling, the falling,
a whir of falling, a wail of falling, the sweet
thud. You are black blood flaring
across the concrete. You are a needle
to the groove of a very sad song.
The whole building burns with you.

“You” first appeared Blackbird and is forthcoming in “Theories of Falling” (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2008).

Small Kingdom
By Sandra Beasley

Who doesn’t love a small kingdom?
The lion has her pride, the mole
her starnosed tunnel. My mother
grows three kinds of basil, and I
collect movie stubs in a box marked
Memories. A whelk knows only

the golden ratio of its chambers,
its figure 8 of nerve endings —
drawbridge mantle, moat ocean.
Washed up, its perfect enclosure
reeks of salt. I sort by color.
I file by coast. I know a man

by the cans and coffee cups
he leaves in his car, the thick
puppy mess of him. Who doesn’t
dream of cleaning out her small
kingdom, tilting the whole stable
on its Augean edge? Who doesn’t love

the disaster of her own making?
Boy, give up your slow reach
before I try to fix your life, before
I let your shell jangle to dust
in my pocket, before I burn
your operculum gate for incense.

I don’t know how to keep you
without killing you a little — the way
my mother pares down the rosemary
each year to keep its flavor bright.
The way we must make all loves smaller
before they can enter our kingdom.

“Small Kingdom” first appeared as Tinyside #30 from Big Game Books and is forthcoming in “Theories of Falling” (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2008).