A hand other than your own
covers your mouth.
You think about the haphazard way
that prayer works, miracles,
wishes.
The obvious choice
is to stay put. Don’t move.
There is no form for this —
you ought to know it by now,
instinct, the body’s language,
a total no-brainer. Not some
second grade teacher’s 5-7-5
relief during the poetry unit,
an easy formulaic response
to growls of cherry blossoms.
Oh no. This is full-on, redoubled,
wheeling epic free verse —fever dream,
old-bones- rocked-to-sleep-on-a-razor’s-edge-can-of-soup-
there-is-not-enough-Vicodin-for-this-armada.
A ship is pulled underwater in your chest.
Cows graze in your head.
Your feet have no imagination.
You should know this one.
Don’t speak. Leave it blank.
There’s your control.
You stand up. You raise your hand,
fail the test over and over again.
The obvious choice
is to stay put. Don’t move.
A hand other than your own
covers your mouth.
You host the barbarian,
you are incendiary,
you are the reason
we have no way
to grade this.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Words For People Who Still Read
Posts
4 comments:
This is much the awesome, woman. I especially like the ship/cows/feet stanza--and all that follows. Not to mention the premise itself and the weird place you went with it. it makes my poetry brain cells do the rhumba.
You should join us at our group The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Today is open link. You could solve that zero comment problem along with any issues with faulty dishwashers or combination skin. Really, come hang with us, we needja.
oops here is Toads:
http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/
Might have misunderstood - but are your words about him?
Anna :o]
This one makes me want to gasp, but the hand covering my mouth...
Post a Comment