Revolutions and singularities

     Early in June it was my privilege to hear poet Lesley Wheeler read as part of the Joaquin Miller Poetry Series on summer Sundays in Washington, DC's Rock Creek Park.  Lesley read from her wonderful 2015 collection, Radioland, in which I found this mathy sonnet, a poem of twists and singularities and rich with double meanings:

       Concentric Grooves, 1983     by Lesley Wheeler

       Every whorl in the floorboard spins clockwise,
       the grain widening round the stain, a stream
       of years circling a burn-brown knot.  Strum
       and crackly gap.  Music drowns a wheeze 
       from the overheated dog, his fur in knots
       too.  It's late and we're listening to the bass line
       with our skeletons.  Separately straining to learn
       slurred words. Her family asleep.  August night.

        Every album by the Rolling Stones,
       in order.  It's Exile on Main Street.  A sepia tint
       from the streetlight edges between us; no stars.
       Singularities in concert tees, teens
       absent then, now gone -- but static's latent
       in the record sleeve.  Those revolutions, still ours.

More information about Radioland (Barrow Street Press, 2015) is available here.  Words from Lesley Wheeler also appeared in this blog in 2010 at this link.