on the construction of a poem
forthwith: language trapped in the colony of an alphabet
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
first: a sound
a wooden hull grousing in the distance
then: an image
incoherence circles back, the circumference in the flag of red squirrel’s tail
appended: cacophony
the laced shoes swinging on the powerline in the dark, trembling
set down: a scratch at a nub of words
broken bottles plot against a wave’s’ black neck, drowning
end: the drop
the way home narrated from tree to tree, thread tied around trunks in the dark
soon after:
gone the grief and the gilding, the poem and you
