Bin Ramke - Massacre of the Innocents by Iowa Poetry Prize

Author:Iowa Poetry Prize
Format: epub

Page 45

of the known might, for instance, be the body,

the physical presence of the self

within the confines of fingers

and toes which find their places in the fingerholds

of the rock face. He had a brother

who was a scientist.

As a boy the brother killed a cat and cleaned it

and presented the skeleton to his school.

More beautiful than any poem,

more clean and white, gleaming in context among

the flasks and beakers and Bunsen

Burners among long rows

of sinks, and sorrow had no place there, only danger.

A man bigger than you and smarter walks

into his future as into

a closet full of the past, full of darkness

and simple desire, which is only to say

the wish for something,

the sense of something missed. In the undiscovered

closet is a shade of green more lovely

than any tree, more full

of promise and of art than any god imagines,

those tiny creatures too simple

and too kind

to understand us. He knows it is the future

because it is too narrow

to turn around in.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.