Elegy Beginning on a Line by Ross Gay
The bullet craves the warmth of a body,
but forgets the body it leaves. Allow
me the metaphor, this aliveness
of everything—the last leg of the trail, scarring
the mountain’s rigid face.
Poets Respond
[dry thunder]
I’m spending the week at a cabin on the Klamath River in Northern California, where a summer storm surprised us on Monday. It’s beautiful here, but dry thunder—and dry lightning—are very ominous in this rugged, mountainous region prone to wildfires. The weather seemed to echo my sense of dread from the political news.
Prayer After Iconoclasm
Blessed are the bones, the scaffold
that holds, seed set in the depth
of the mouth, waiting to sprout
in the slippery dark.
There Was No Fire
this time or the next, no rules to ignore,
no chamber to load with one round and send
spinning, no knife pointing forward, no sirens
to duck, no people to swing at the head,
Mockingbirds
My friend says she wants to shoot
the mockingbirds who infest the big tree
outside her window and sing all night.
Advice to a Monolith
To mirror the desert, you must wear away.
I learned this on a long walk, long ago.
My skin went dark past bronze. My hair grew dust. Sun washed my clothes into rock-colored gauze.