(1)
 
one of many ledges      shadow-dispelling
& in that like a doorway lit
from either side
 
someone approaches
a few grains against their left hip
“someone” is always an edge, or a ledge
 
in this tapestry designed by Comper
someone
is drawing a needle
with its thread                                    through—
& this is the question
 
whether stones lie
& if so,                 how we call them out for it
 
what the host
condigns to show us, whittled
from other ghosts
 
a thrumming, a thrumbling
upon the sharp edge of which I strode
 
without any usher       to tempt my silence
 
      (2)
 
the pasture’s asceticism refusing
the strict frame
of color, rotary declension of the senses
 
all matter
judges other matter
which is in turn judged—                  (breath
 
is one form this takes, but not the only)
 
prepare a magnifying mechanism,
apply it
as one would a poultice, to a burn
 
things
we can see in the sky, vs things we can’t
 
      (3)
 
breech of willow just beyond the burnish
of the walking poor
 
alone suggesting
they have left their books
of martyrs        open in some other room
strict regime                    where hunger sets
 
like a moon we put there
 
expecting confidently we would return
 
      (4)
 
striations in the absolute                   gelded
 
the utter absence of neolithic evidence
at these locations
(as
of gold thread, I stooped, I looked)
 
nor blame-struck chapelry
for the exchange of humours, pigments
 
nothing like that
 
you bring your geometry with you
 
packed
like a light lunch, pierced transversely
 
& then the drop
 
(but—          holding itself
almost motionless against the gusts)
 
      (5)
 
why not
turn the tired body
to more than calendar, less than plight—
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
G.C. WALDREP’s most recent books are feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the long poem Testament (BOA Editions, 2015). Newer work has appeared in APR, Poetry, Paris Review, New England Review, Yale Review, Iowa Review, Colorado Review, New American Writing, Conjunctions, etc. Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University and edits the journal West Branch.