Poem of the Day
from Penitential Cries
By Susan Howe
Stand up facing the wall, chair behind you. Not feet splayed outward, you cannot go that low
Stand up facing the wall, chair behind you. Not feet splayed outward, you cannot go that low
These were your sighs,
your toss,
the listing yoke
I dream
of magazine covers
and clothes from my seventeenth summer,
In a field of broken antlers,
I’m holy
as the grass
I don’t give
a pound of
mule mucous
I give up:
I bleed I must know.
Grant me the
Although it is noon or roughly so, the church below is
positioned like an hour hand
at eleven o’clock,
So many channels to choose from. Somewhere
in the high numbers blockheads trash-talk
during recess in the blue playground near school.
The good life is unbuttoned, questions
about gender just stirring after a raucous night
under the hammock. Rumor has it that trellises
Baseball is the purest sport, meaning
ballparks out in the heartland, mixing
fork balls and slurves, tapping
Everything about
a human
is doomed