It comes in, the peat smell
of smoke, though all windows
are shuttered in the house.
What’s burning? I wonder
aloud. As it turns out,
a building under renovation
across town, near the harbor.
And how does the scallion
I chop into slivers on my small
bamboo cutting board relate to
the latest news from the world?
Any distance between two
points can be collapsed,
a teacher showed students:
tracking with arrows drawn
in whiteboard marker
how metaphor rows—
from blueberry to pie to milk
to winter to warm to kitchen
to eating to lonely to fire.
[LAG-other-response url=”https://www.vianegativa.us/2016/12/death-grip/” title=”Via Negativa: Death grip”]