The smoke goes up the way a rotting log goes out–away
Serpentine in air and not just light but hot
And heavy enough to come back down and dapple black
Amid the greens and wood the smoke is there to say:
I am the moment of oxygen and carbon
I have tasted of the choice and action
Plant to paper in which plant to flame
Cash crops made a life more bituminous
For a continent who found the middle
The harsh savoring smoke draws out
And the feet, the fish, the climb, the breath, and the brother draw in
Smoke (after Thoreau)
by Benjamin Ginzky
by Benjamin Ginzky
The Union of Salt and Sand
by Amelia Soth
The affliction took many forms: one man refused to sit down, afraid he’d shatter his buttocks; another tried to fling himself into a kiln, in hopes of being remade as a goblet.