In the city in which I works
best
there is no you. Understand
that
understanding means an
opening
where there should be a wall.
If you build
a bridge it’ll just be broken
once a foot becomes steps.
The signal
we saw in faraway smoke said
the need for help is a
warning
that the helper will soon
become
the one in need. Gold is gold
because we put a limit on the
number
of hands that can hold it. How
could you
disgrace this nation built on
the backs bent under
the weight of the forest that
felled them?
If a thousand tulips insist
on their colors,
the field of green will still
be green. Still,
out of the many, one is the
only pronoun
we can find room for. The
point of every
dollar we’ve earned is to
prove to ourselves
our own favor. And God is the
green who favors
our greens. O, say. We light
by our own gun
the scope from which we’ll
never escape.
Emma Bolden is the author of three
full-length collections of poetry – House Is An Enigma (Southeast Missouri State University
Press), medi(t)ations (Noctuary Press, 2016) and Maleficae (GenPop Books, 2013) – and four chapbooks. The
recipient of a 2017 Creative Writing Fellowship from the NEA, her work has
appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Best Small Fictions, and such journals as theMississippi Review, The
Rumpus, StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, New Madrid, TriQuarterly, the Indiana Review, Shenandoah, the Greensboro Review, andThe Journal. She currently serves as Associate Editor-in-Chief for Tupelo Quarterly. You can find out more at EmmaBolden.com.
the
Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
No comments:
Post a Comment