By Richard Fox
as you must—in evergreens prior to
daylight or savings—many cars will pass
through the ether. To wait in the evergreens
is just like you, who never owned a farthing—
your smartphone is a chocolate bar
tilted to your ear. To you, starving
is a kind of theater, but no one would
blame you, were you to come up lacking,
for going back home, taking off your
shoes, & placing them beside your bed;
no one could blame you if you were to
polish them laboriously, blacking
them for when you are walk-sore—
a stoop-shouldered melee in a fedora.
In your new mobility, you will
walk through a tall hedge, & mid
step, you’ll be done in the fledge of an eyelid.
To wait like water that fills the lowland
aquifers beneath the hill, is to be the deep
that wrinkles & tears like paper, & keeps
alive the grass that shares—
with this perpetual place of needle-fall—
the shade & caul of the ample Earth.
Those who appear dead, for all it’s worth,
remain here, & walk with us through fire
or through wood; honey & pasture standing
where they stood; no sweet without the sting.
Richard Fox has been a regular contributor of poetry and visual art to online and print literary journals. He has been recipient of a full poetry fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council, a CAAP work support grant from the City of Chicago, and a work fellowship at the Millay Colony.
Swagger & Remorse, his first book of poetry, was published in 2007. He is currently working on several collections of soundscapes, which are being made available online at Bandcamp.