CRY UNTO COUNTRY
Mind as conflagration,
mind as a canting floor—
not as in
nation’s
raw red
reward—
rather some
other mare’s
lore—plays up a
role. Apply us a
poultice of pulped bills
(cut, I bleed). Poll’s pupil, of
this sea be fealty’s fashion. I
obey, finish a last shift, see a
say-sickness, to swab
abscess, ways to skin
late cataplasm,
a meat past call.
Spend us
sends up
baubles, sad
baud, bless a
bit per second,
bent crop dies,
honored
horde. On
a bruising
in us I brag
as big ruin—
In America
I can re-aim.
Credit
From Stet by Dora Malech. Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
Author
Dora Malech

Dora Malech is the author of Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2010) and Shore Ordered Ocean (Waywiser Press, 2009).
Date Published: 2018-10-01
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/cry-unto-country