Skip to content →

Untitled 7

I compare my hands to what I imagine thought might look like

when suspended in fossilized amber,

release the captured mosquito from my closed hands,

string dimming gas lamps between rain and fall,

and insert into the knife’s pale origin—

a twig warming the clutching hand.

from Flood SongFind it in the library

Copyright © 2009 Sherwin Bitsui
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.

Published in Poems Sherwin Bitsui

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.