the sea plucked by a summer shower
glows a green only grey can make
orphicpink ophelias drift shiftlessly
out of sight, as if through air
the walk to melissa's is half an hour
from the station barefoot, give or take
the same hills sylvia and her feral children
scoured, manes matted with milk and thistles
wolfskin boots sewed to their ankles
with rotting sheep's gut hair
*
the walls are wet
with morning dew
maybe we were meant
to suck in the poison
too
pass it inward like a vision
conversant
in the old mendacities
out and out
time and again
so we could say
confidently
that we knew
what was
what
©
's work has been published in The Atlantic, Hanging Loose, Little Star, GlitterPony, e*ratio, and elsewhere. His translations of Russian poetry have been published in Agni, Circumerence, Action Yes, and are forthcoming in the new The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry.
Stotts’s poem “birds in flight” also appears in this issue.
