An archivist digs up erudite responses for arguments
proven ephemeral, impossible and out of vogue.
Meanwhile, in amniotic shifts part silver and part blue
an oyster farms its pearl.

John Michael Flynn could be that pearl farmer in the poem “Freon Bender,” sifting the detritus in hopes that what we value will settle out and root. Flynn is after nothing short of transformation, and he takes us along for the ride, as in “Three Intangible Initiations.”

Seizures of light in the Nebraska evening lifted us.
Like cloud lakes over steamy earth we lingered
without answers to a glow-ring in the sky.
When summer lightning detonated our spines
we crashed into a barn through its roof.