Literary History
by Anthony Seidman
|
When the first
poet sang
it was
in a scale only
whales could haul up
from steepest
ocean floors.
The scale oozed
fingers of rain
from ears of the deaf &
stillborn; the scale
rippled over
swamps of cyonide where
submerged tigers
hunted red elephants.
It was a scale
the woman heard when
the pit of a plum
petrified
in her womb; it was
in the key of wind
after silence gels,
and sentries fall
asleep against their spears.
It was the sound
of shock absorbers
silently pumping
over unpaved colonias
of Juarez, or a bar
after bottle shards
have been swept.
The first poet sang
in a scale that had to be
whispered so that
an egg
could be heard
cracking.
|
 |
|
|
Copyright © 2024 by Red River Review. First Rights Reserved. All other rights revert to the authors. No work may be reproduced or republished without the express written consent of the author. |