Dan Liberthson Prize, 2017

 

wade [this question]

through[, and back with] black [proceed, drop] jade.

       Of the crow-blue [stirs, the] mussel-shells, [and burn seeds] one keeps

       adjusting [an order of the visible] the ash-heaps;

              opening and shutting [divisibility] itself like [i know]

 

an

injured [future] fan[s us

       keeps] The barnacles [kind] which encrust the [same] side

       of the [same] wave, [a throat] cannot hide

              there [much less tongue] for the submerged shafts [voice-lit] of the

 

sun [and ideal],

split like [you are] spun

       [and the] glass [within], move[, underlight] themselves with spotlight swiftness

      [quivering] into the crevices [skinny]—

              in and out, illuminating

 

the [silt of]

turquoise sea [and

     curl] of bodies. The water [presses flowers] drives [weed] a wedge

       of iron [air] through the iron [sky top] edge

              of the cliff; whereupon the [emptied of] stars,

 

pink [silver

   our love] rice-[pale in] grains [my love], ink-[sunk since

or] bespattered [eyes where] jelly fish, crabs [die] like green

       [sick and then] lilies, and submarine [you are

              with spore-filled] toadstools, slide each [in so] on the other [you

 

] All

external [Rock]

       marks [are marks least] of abuse [most] are present on this [float]

       defiant edifice—

              [its] all [toward a state] the physical features of [my ball fisted]

              

ac-

cident—lack [the story]

       of cornice, dynamite [of astral aspect and] grooves, burns, and

       hatchet strokes, these [claims, masked] things[, with]stand

              out on it; the chasm, [lung]-side is

 

 dead.

Repeated [water

       is] evidence has proved [kinful,] that it can live[. 

       Put] on what can not revive

              its youth. The sea grows old in [fussing] it.

 

 

 

This poem previously appeared in Shearsman.