share


Testament: Two Poems

Testament


What’s the

difference?

You might

wear it out

touching,

touching, not

buying. Like a

snail on a stick,

you, slow over

it with your tiny

mouth, never

biting. Spiral:

the eye,

the head, the repetition

of thought—omen

omenless. Things—

soft, hard, book,

milk, rogue wheat

in the drive, pidgeons

and all—just

this world and ourselves

in it.

The holy is

otherwise,

nowhere. Where

the not-fog

waits in the

no-valley.


Testament


Fear of loss

is more

common than loss,

a clear stone that tumbles

against its brothers,

a filament

spun from unpronounceable

metals which enters

a hole, fissure,

a tiny camera that swims,

radioactivity

that sprinkles a map

of mystery.

Now I see

so many little

doors I know

we can’t

contain it,

blood’s push

which purifies and

cannot. Dear

fear, hot piece,

are you machine,

animal,

ghost?


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is an associate professor of English at New Mexico State University, where she directs the creative writing program. Educated at Yale University, she received her MFA from University of California at Irvine and her Ph.D. from University of Utah. Her book, Cathedral of the North, was winner of the AWP Award in Poetry and was released by University of Pittsburgh Press. Rare High Meadow of Which I Might Dream was published by University of Chicago Press in 2008 and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

READ NEXT

Art

March 2014

Amy Sillman: The Labour of Painting

Paige K. Bradley

Amy Sillman

Art

March 2014

The heritage of conceptualism and minimalism leaves a tendency to interpret a reduction in form as intellectually rigorous. If...

Prize Entry

April 2015

Smote, or ...

Eley Williams

Prize Entry

April 2015

To kiss you should not involve such fear of imprecision. I shouldn’t mind about the gallery attendant. He is...

Interview

October 2015

Interview with Valeria Luiselli

Stephen Sparks

Interview

October 2015

Valeria Luiselli’s second novel, The Story of My Teeth, was commissioned by two curators for an exhibition at Galeria...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required