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Contributors' notes
Sam Rasnake
Into Early Spring, After Reading Earthenware Fertility Figure
for Felicia Mitchell
I have to second-guess all my archetypes.
There’s a hole in the language—yes—where my feelings ought
to be. And I’m starving, haven’t eaten in months.
This shirt around my heart sags loose. Both lungs collapse
whenever the tongue tries its sacred vowels, leaving
the breath gauzy, and the mouth a puzzled o.
My aureolas have thinned their dark flavors.
I’ve a rib missing—I suppose—but that’s not
the answer. These legs have forgotten their use, and
the genitals, their hammer for my wilder behavings.
But when there’s no moon—Ah! my shoulders—
they’re still wide enough to hold the deeper stars
in Virgo—stars leeched to a sky that will drip
its stark silence over every thing until we learn to listen.
