This poem is taken from PN Review 237, Volume 44 Number 1, September - October 2017.
Five Poems
Bear, II
A bear brings forth her young informous and unshapen.
I now wear the pelt of the conjured beast around my groin.
I think of new words for solace, one of which is knifed.
We take no form until licked into shape by the tongues of those who love us.
A bear brings forth her young informous and unshapen.
I now wear the pelt of the conjured beast around my groin.
I think of new words for solace, one of which is knifed.
We take no form until licked into shape by the tongues of those who love us.
And death demands a labor
When it rains in Boston, from each street rises
the smell of sea. So do the faces of the dead.
For my father, I will someday write:
On this day endeth this man, who did all he could
to craft the most intricate fears, this man
whose waking dreams were of breaking the small bones
in the feet of all the world’s birds. Father.
You know the stories. You were raised on them.
To end a world, a god dances. To kill a demon,
a goddess turns into one. Almanacs of annihilation
are chronicled in cosmic time. Go on.
...
