DANI BAKER

STUDYING IN THE CONTENT AREAS

Tonight was like a video

I recognized you from my movie

and named you Driftwood, Train and Sparkplug

after my first pets, true allies that spoke

fluent Tocharian B

We sang American folk songs in the Uckermark

Off the highway we sang O Death

in a style I’d never heard

We anthologized field recordings

heavy little mice suckling on quinces

chestnuts dropping by the bowlful

hideous birds’ mating calls

and mid-century state-sponsored television

programs self-emanating off the VHS tapes

I guess this is what friendship is

Swigging from the bottle, you watch

all the different ways to hold me

Could we finally summarize the years

in a rhyming textbook, anthologize

the historical trends and carry on

with our day? We messed it all up

when we bit into the spine

You were hungry so I gave you everything

which set us back. But I love watching you

kiss the town’s incorporation signposts

Black-and-white emergency declarations

The problem is the cropping

When reproduced in City Hall’s Historical Wing

Somehow we hear the song, it’s like

Mercury pooling in the concerto

It feels like second nature to me

This archival surveillance

I’ve got reports on every last one of you

You screamed from the rafters

“MELT ME WITH FIRE”

“THE DRONE LIGHT FLASHES

IN THE SKY BRUISE, DUMBASS”

Just like you’d heard it on the TV

I didn’t even bother turning around

I’ve got plenty to occupy myself with

And I don’t like to be called names

At my desk is a nice tall stack

To get lost in, continue my studies

Of the content areas, as I work

On my grand unified theory

Of “galactic walls,” the largest known

Structures of the universe, really

Though I’m interested in the “bubbles”

Between them, where we hear

The faint static of anthologized song

Once you chill out, we can get a move-on

Feed newly anthologized meats

To each other on the steps

Upload today’s video on the city’s wi-fi

And proceed to the next area

Now unlocked by my level-ups

We crawl into the car and you tongue

My ear, that’s a new one, record it

Quickly because soon there’ll be nothing

Left, careening into the antiquarian

DANI BAKER is a poet from San Francisco who lives in New York City. She wrote The Streamers (Spiral Editions) & her work appears or is forthcoming in the Cleveland Review of Books, The Baffler, Annulet, Coma, and elsewhere. She’s the co-editor of Topos Press.