Issue 7, Winter/Spring 2009

The Stars That Come Before the Night, by Ana Bozicevic

i.

Out of the body of the dead dachshund A mountain of luxury. Asleep in its branches was luxury, badgers born blind into luxury – their crying was luxury, above all luxuries. But Love was usury. It counted the pennies of the person, chanted Dog in the yard where now there was no dog. It waited, then jumped and wrenched: What did you do with the pennies of his person?! — Violent stillness. I looked and saw Love had ossified, a root, straight into the ground. I could hear a brook gurgling. Badgers burrowing. This was no place for politics. Clouds skated overhead. Then mountain crooned out: –There’s a root growin next to my root, so close. There’s a root fixin to strangle my root, But worm and water, it feels like embracin And I need me some embracin, And tho you smell like sadness, and that’s same as money, I’ll take it from you now, wipe from it the finance And leave only luxury. The Dog, he knew such luxury. He knew grass and sun were luxury. He died of luxury, in the lap of luxury

ii.

Ever let something go
then watch it from afar?

Now you’re not so sure –
applause

stales.
Did you really push it

away with these two hands?
They latch

the window, pull to
a chair....

So sorry, dear star that came before the night

Sunset was applause. We lived in the nail castle, summered at laundry palace. Round glittered  dear carpetworld – at sweet hollow diner by waterfront chiropractors you were adventureland, an edible arrangement. Now I work at men’s warehouse, sleep in home depot. I bump into you at melting pot or pizza hut. And it’s almost nothing, the thing more than one dollar – an indoor lumberyard. Sunset’s just a flavor.

iv.

I want a world like that,
and I want it round,

& to snap the little flowers
all the way down—

Why not just wake up?
It’s Broadway, it has no body

You had to be there.
Adventuress swims inside
her wife’s good body.

Two clouds on the mountain.

v.

The trees just got more treeyey, voices under the bed purred out – she made contact. Now she would do everything opposite (and even “Take Me to the Riot” sounds like shit!) – no more Dead dachshund and I’d like to join him, or My girlfriend thinks I’m fat – she’ll dip under, not with important-sounding speech but the importance of speech, then…
then…fuck. She asks the test question. Nothing. A false positive, I guess.

vii.

Sadness plus finance equals luxury. Commerce plus treetops is travel. What then of the mountain? Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived kindly king Louis Vuitton the Third. For a summer job he worked at the dairy barn on Broadway, and there, quite by accident, he fell in love. Twice a day the dachshund would drive by inside an object, and ask for a pretzel. The feeling he would get puzzled king Vuitton: it poked, like a stone in the shoe. Finally he asked him out and closed shop. It was night. He put his heart in nightcare and walked to the diner. They both showed up for the date dressed like wives. It was something to laugh about. They laughed for many months, then…fuck. Something was wrong. King looked and saw dachshund had ossified, and when he walked around the still body, it was just a front, with a stick from behind. Where was Dog? King tore his stole in sadness and started walking. Those who met him laughed at him: all he would say was, try to make it where I’m going. After some time the mountain began to loom. It loomed first through his dreams: just a mountaintop here and there, spinning. Then leaves would scatter on the road. The clouds raced together to form a pretzel. It pointed to something dirty. The joke was some thing to laugh about – almost nothing, but he knew he made contact – like two flavors perfect together, the indoor palace everyone talked about Each little thing a luxury good Or the star he had read of, that shines in the sunset: A root. His status as leaf