A Crown of Dust

(a cento)


14

                 everyone fears midday.
and waiting.

I am writing about you.
If you are looking for me, I am home

My shoes of dust, my skin of pollen,

The vision is closing in like a tight dress.

Past futures and future futures
wing. A serrated song with a split tongue of onyx feathers.

What is a nation that does not save

I hug and hold harder and harder

There is a voice and it answers:
Hello, my name is mostly water.
the day could do without

me.

Line sources:
Tada Chimako, Ayesha Asad, Jane Kenyon, Marie-Andree Gill,
Denis Johnson, Morgan Parker, Evelyn Reilly, Ed Pavlic,
Claire Schwartz, Kim Hyesoon, Tina Chang, Andrew Hemmert,
Taylor Byas