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

Interview

Issue No. 11

Interview with Philippe Parreno

Ben Eastham

Interview

Issue No. 11

It is the standard procedure, when visiting someone in central Paris, to ask in advance for the door code...

fiction

January 2016

The Bees

Wioletta Greg

TR. Eliza Marciniak

fiction

January 2016

On Sunday right after lunch, my father began preparing muskrat skins and cut his finger on a dirty penknife....

poetry

Issue No. 8

The Cloud of Knowing

John Ashbery

poetry

Issue No. 8

There are those who would have paid that. The amount your eyes bonded with (O spangled home) will have...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required