April 7, 2007: Hour, Christian Hawkey
Hour
Christian Hawkey
My sixth sensurround
is down, my second skin
the skin I’m stepping
into: I lick
a new finger & hold it up
to the wind: O my beloved
what. O
my beloved what. O my
beloved shovel-nosed mole
can I clean the soil
from your black, sightless eyes
can I massage with fine oils
your tiny, webbed feet
are you tired of running
into drainpipes
does your mouth foam
approaching power lines
are your tunnels collapsing
do you have work to do
does the dirt breathe
do you breathe the air
between the dirt
are your lungs
the size of earlobes
do you hear me
in the tunnel next to you
have you cut your nose
on a shard of glass
have you excavated
the severed, blue leg
of Spider-Man
did you pause to admire
his red booties
are you tunnels collapsing
do you have work to do
am I keeping you
am I keeping you
[I think one of the worst holdovers from English classes is the idea that you should understand everything going on in a poem right away, when poetry is awesome because it’s the one thing that’s allowed to function on other levels: how it sounds, how it looks, how it can catch you up in its images or language even if it doesn’t seem to make sense. I have no idea what on earth is going on at the beginning of this poem and I love it anyway. Maybe because of it.]
More like this:
Four poems by Christian Hawkey
A Dead Mole, Andrew Young
A year ago: For the Anniversary of My Death, W.S. Merwin
Two years ago: The Last Poem About the Snow Queen, Sandra M. Gilbert
