Kestrel
By Poetry Issue 92
Vigilante couchant on a pillow of air at hover in the Hopkins-eye; excess of fire, self-contained, prone to set the heather steppes ablaze: Rufus Raptor, of the falcon family, master of the chimney-stack, mistress of the house-sparrows flustering beneath in the gutter-dust; Prospero of the island, of moorland and coast, upland and down, power-bolt out…
Read MoreMerton Listens to the Requiem
By Poetry Issue 91
The bow drops. The baton slips from a hand. Can one conduct trees? In the Lacrimosa the violins rush to set up tall trunks in an autumn wood. In the chancel amber leaves flicker. Death descends from the pulpit, a traveling peddler in rented garb. The church cracks open like a jewel case. A vaulting…
Read More[You bind my hands with saliva]
By Poetry Issue 90
This is a rich, mighty martyrdom. —Santa Teresa de Ávila, The Book of Life You bind my hands with saliva, then turn three times round my waist and ensure your victory with a knot without a loophole. You’re a snail, binding the hands of the rain. You rend the night any which way…
Read MoreImagineer of Variety
By Poetry Issue 90
Maker of heaven and earth ——-of time and season Thinker-upper of soil —— of autumn decay, and rot and roots drawing nutrients ——-whatever they are that feed and sustain —— the beauty of the lilies, and the violets Imagineer of variety Puller-offer of the impossible breaking our hearts ——-every spring day ——-with greater magnolia blossom ————–finer,…
Read MoreGlowworm
By Poetry Issue 90
I am the whisper matches rattle in their cold and boxy hovels. I’m desire gone to ground. I am efficient, almost secret; you can read in me such scripture of the most compacted and contented red-light district. Impish sample seraph, humblest in lust, I am the apocryphalest rumor waiting just around the corner. See me…
Read More[Honey lives only]
By Poetry Issue 90
Eat honey, my son, for it is good, and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste. ———–—Proverbs 24:13 Honey lives only in hexagons because they ensure a balance of sweetness their shape is a star’s design six implied triangles drinking from the center’s source shrouded in the most frugally abundant capacity in order not…
Read MoreAgain to Port Soderick
By Poetry Issue 88
(from Hopkins’s journal of a vacation on the Isle of Man, August 1872) So much need in that “Again.” To see it in good weather. To look down again from the cliffs at the high water of a full tide. To hold the kaleidoscope of the waves to his eye and watch them churn and…
Read MoreAt Terezín
By Poetry Issue 54
The swallows dive near and twist Their invisible strings as if Binding you hand and foot, And tumble away, swallows like souls In paradise, whispering, “Here is one Who will increase our loves….” Every summer they came, they must have— Who could stop them?—to build Where they had built, looping The same knot theories and…
Read MoreThe Field
By Poetry Issue 54
There was a dirt field I’d walk to as a girl, past the convenience store and the train tracks where the day laborers congregated with six-packs, where the two-lane road turned to one lane with yellow stripes and the vacant field loomed like a desiccated fallen sky. That’s where I’d go to sit on an…
Read MoreHymn
By Poetry Issue 54
“Great is thy faithfulness,” __Say the leaves to the light. “Oh God, my father,” __Says darkness to night. “There is no shadow,” __Says the eye to the sun. “Of turning with thee,” __As tears start to burn. “All I have needed,” __Says the sand to the storm. “Thy hand has provided,” __Say the combs to…
Read More