Published on Academy of American Poets (https://poets.org)


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