NER Ulysses Reading Series: National Poetry Month Edition - April 17, 7 PM, Humanities House, Middlebury College
From Vol. 34, No. 2
The Point of the Needle
Dana Levin | Poetry
Since you got to behead

each

           hollyhock crown
           with your round
           guillotine
           of a mouth—
I hope you get to spin inside your
           paper house.
           Emerge noctuidae,
           owlet moth,
           laying your eggs in leaves at night.
That you might finish your stitch—
Replicate yourself in time so you are
           always present—
           each egg a deposit—
           an echo-pearl of “you” along time’s string—
That my soul might be allowed
            to flourish—
Make a success
           of threading flesh, to participate
           again in time, on
           long arcs between sets of plunge, even though
                             it hurt—
                             to be born and die—
                             it loved to ride
                                           the point
                                           of the needle—

 

 

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