POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.
I tap at the alphabet while a single deer
taps at the dirt beyond the brush
on the far side of the tree line.
I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.
I imagine that undressing a color, though, would be so much like peeling a memory away from the grey and the white matter of your brain.
I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.
We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…
we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts
I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.
you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?
