Symptom
       

Some star

sickens away from its the.

An unoriginal

contagion weighs down, not so much

falling as suffering

toward the mundane, like a crust of snow

becoming brackish mud. We're

anointed by these vagaries and their

iconographic slights

as we peer into the initialed surface

of a gorgeous blank, as if to discover

metonymy's touch. The field

blinks between shadow and

radiance, or between the dream

and what we might perceive as we rush

toward the ditch. Everything slated,

ambitions of a girl

visible for miles, her smiling aperture

and her lists, her vague hair

tossed, her arms reaching for fire.

At the window, a man peers in

as her brilliant fingers ignite the trees.

Tweet

Copyright © 2018 Ann Lauterbach All rights reserved
from Spell
Penguin Random House
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission