Opening Gambit
Two decommissioned highways cross
and continue toward their borders
with the casual certainty
the dead carry in their sample cases.
Leaning against the wind
I notice tufts of fur in the air
and a driveshaft rising from the sand,
then the horsehair of a violinist's bow
drawn steadily across my neck.
| About this poem: "Something I've always found meaningful and bewitching is a short poem's ability to exist at the crossroads of vastly real and vastly metaphorical landscapes—the universe captured in a fleeting, image-driven shapshot. Charles Simic claims there is a 'religion of the short poem,' and I think he's right. As for the poems I've been working on over the past year, which include 'Opening Gambit,' I've found myself at the altar of Yannis Ritos, James Wright, and John Haines." Michael McGriff |
Copyright © 2013 by Michael McGriff. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on March 15, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
Michael McGriff
Michael McGriff is the author of Eternal Sentences (University of Arkansas Press, 2021), winner of the 2021 Miller Williams Prize. He is the co-author (with J. M. Tyree) of Our Secret Life in the Movies (A Strange Object, 2014). McGriif’s other works include Black Postcards (Willow Springs Books, 2017); Early Hour (Copper Canyon Press, 2017); Home Burial (Copper Canyon Press, 2012); and Dismantling the Hills (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008).