I woke to find
that I’d forgotten
what it was for
a deceptively
simple tool
as if for stripping
the skin away or
emptying the insides
of the thing while
leaving the shell intact
as if an egg
without white or yolk
strung on a filament
signifying birth
or rebirth
but empty—
it was one or the other
I was certain
as I lay in the dark room
sunslats marking
the wall with Morse
but to flay or
disembowel
I wasn’t sure anymore
2
day as an erasure of thought, a wind-filled
covenant, light on rock, rock on rock on earth
so early born it was a wonder that we could
speak of it to one another at all, too tired even
for coffee and lost as we tried to find our way
to the grocery store and barber, we were hopeless
and filled with such hope, you see we wanted
to find our way, to cook in the strange vessels
and swim underwater with our eyes wide, oh
god there was nothing we wouldn’t do to see
from Poetry Northwest 08.2 Fall & Winter 2013-2014More by Jessica Fisher from the library
Copyright © Jessica Fisher
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.