ISSUE: Spring 1995
There are words
on the edges of things,
parasitic, hungry
for meaning—
on the edges of things,
parasitic, hungry
for meaning—
How I want them: mourn
and extinguish,
exoskeleton
and wing. . . .
I hold out my hands, murmuring
“Lent” means spring, murmuring
cracked rocks on the creekbank, slimy
with moss,
and whisper words
in incantation:
ammonia,
amnesia, memoria,
Medusa,
but none of them summons
me. What a sweet
heap they fall into: mash
and windfall, ferment
and rot,
and not one will deliver me.
