An Unobservable Force Will Never Reveal Its Face by Brianna Noll
I thought the invisible
hand of the market
a velvetine fist,
viridian and calculable
like vectors of rain
in a dark winter.
I diagrammed its force
on the bedsheets
when I couldn’t sleep
so it was always
with me—a flutter
of huge wings
that would block
out the sun if they
weren’t so invisible.
I began to listen instead
to the wings of the hand
of the market, waiting
for the words to take
shape, to reveal
the dark flight feathers
of old world vultures.
My mistake, I realized
then, was to trust
an opponent who
changed their vehicle,
and I collapsed
like the saiga antelope—
whole birthing herds
dead on the plains—
as when you know
what’s to blame
but something clips
your tongue and
tells you hush.
*
Brianna Noll is the author of The Era of Discontent, forthcoming from Elixir Press in 2021, and The Price of Scarlet (University Press of Kentucky, 2017), which was named one of the top poetry books of 2017 by the Chicago Review of Books. She is poetry editor of The Account, which she helped found, and her poems and translations have appeared widely in journals, including the Kenyon Review Online, The Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, and Waxwing. She lives in Los Angeles.
