Traci Brimhall | Poetry
from NER 41.2
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MADE FROM FIBRES NOT READILY PENETRATED
We had to decide how to dress, weighing in the balance the searing heat and
politeness to our hosts. Some chose to pack light, go bare-armed, risking the
glares of the sun and old women. Others trawled the high street, fingering
linen—the obvious choice—to mark us as another kind of Englishwoman:
those who remain pale beneath ivory, khaki, and sepia sheaths, our skin creased
like out-of-date maps to an oasis we could never reach on our own.
a blue field—
wind wrinkled
sky-clad
Retting the histories of borders drawn with a ruler, canals and peninsulas
seized, villages winnowed and shtetls heckled, blankets infected, tongues
uprooted, generations threshed—we reap the bitter dew of voices wrung
from outlawed clouds.
a rusted key—
a lace handkerchief
left on a line
MINOR KEY/HOLE
Mine
the moon?
O no, I moan
the moon over
meaning miners
mainline moondust
lithium regalith
helium-3 domain
naming
irradiated dreams
unlimited
lift-off
no one leaves
only footprints
in the light
we name
dark and drill
into as if
it is hiding
our future
from us
a lost key
turning
in the
finite night
invisible
to the
stripped eye
moneyed moon
mine not
to wander
why
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