I’d like to express my gratitude to poet-, editor-, and human-extraordinaire Catherine Strisik for including my poem, “Message in a Bottle to Arthur Sze,” in the gorgeous new issue (issue 13) of Taos Journal of Poetry. I’m thrilled for this chance to share my poem with you, and deeply honored that it now resides amongst such gloriously earnest, inspired company…
Terminal
What is the terminal velocity of a squirrel?
my son once asked
(only the gods know what
precipitated his inquiry),
no doubt hoping
for a literal response;
but I couldn’t help
wondering
whether the fall that fails
to attenuate its consequent
landing, misses the mark,
or strikes true?
While certain Rodentia have
inherited the uncanny
fortune of built-in
arm-to-ankle extensions,
evolution withholds
such membranous solutions
to our own, inborn
predilection for doom.
What profit is to be
won of our climbing—
of so much inching along
the highest branches until
they can no longer bear
our weight—
much less of our retreats,
our blunderings, our plummets?
Does the sole stepping
forth create the target,
or obliterate its imprinted
eons from the forest loam?
Terminal is an attitude,
I wish I’d known enough to tell him,
having little to do with velocity,
& much to do with trajectory.
“Terminal” was published by editor extraordinaire Barton Smock in Isacoustic* in October 2019.
Our favorite poet, Robert Okaji, is truly at his finest in this “luminous” collection! Order his must-read chapbook today!
The publication date for I Have a Bird to Whistle (7 Palinodes) is February 25, and Luminous Press is currently offering copies for $7.50, shipping included, to U.S. addresses, through the 24th. Unfortunately, Luminous doesn’t ship internationally, but I will take care of those orders myself.
Order link for U.S. shipping addresses.
Contact me at aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com for orders to be shipped outside the U.S.
I am a pink rose petal’s pale glow
black ash tamped in furrows
between the breath of the living
& the souls of the dead
the dawn’s blush unfurling over sand dunes
& seagulls soaring on thermal spirits
of iodine salt & shellfish
& sometimes scattering in the wind
I can’t find where everything else ends & I begin
Now rising from the morning hush this cloud of me
speaks to the red tail hawk perched on a streetlamp
& tells her I’m fine because I’m still not sure
how to talk about not being fine
I am an instar trying to be
the clearest version of myself to sculpt
a final skin of lucent crystal
so that when you come to see my cinder eyes
glinting diamond dust I will be
the embered dusk bleeding into the sea
& you will know the truth of me
A previous version of this poem first appeared in Sixfold magazine, winter 2014.
SLHARPERPOETRY 