Poem of the Month
Press

By Mary Dalton

Published on January 6, 2014

Indeed you miss the point, my friend. It does
stand stubbornly guarding
mile after mile of soft and useless dust

and wind out of the north with a low whine
and the lying mouth of the news—
the bitch!—the words and weather both are cutting.

Press of the floor coming up through you and
gull-cries, the all-around
dawn spills its ghostly water.

Dingle-dong, the dead bells go,
are now here with you, is this clear?
Trashing the alligator man-trap handbags.

Dominating every harbour.
You know people there. Their faces are photographs;
and a tense, musty, unignorable silence.

Who knows the place the poster advertises?
White bones tumble from it;
hand paws the wall to reach the chilly switch.

Descending the map of damp
are enormous messages, a looming mastery—
and a hundred islands.

What light trapped in a clenched sky
to learn the language of what’s done and said
when there is so much wind?

The congregation never imagined,
the room in sudden stasis—
the wing of a gust.

The jukebox music takes you back;
braver than lipstick,
its threads the colour of cantaloupe and cherry.

More Poetry

From “Pink, Curved Thing”

We are not as elegant as marble But we are trying Living our fantasies together In public parks The erection of ...

Feel Happier in Nine Seconds

I learned the secret of serenity
by waterboarding daffodils.
My Buddha is landfill.
My mantra choked

Unsigned City

I detail the verbal exchanges with the affronted voyager on distant terraces, each equivalent in the space of the citation. Attempt in the morning: the magnolia garden inspecting its blue lack. Through the telescope, beautiful women make jewellery and dissolve in water.