I had been a ghost in boots
and lace, the green wheat beyond
the wire and the wind
unbuttoning my scent when
all was hardscrabble. Coal dust ignites
like a religion. One by one the finch bodies
drop: I cannot but read the portents.
A sharp crescent glints, ever ready.
You can throw river stones until dawn
but they will only ripple the unwanted
answer. Go where the drawn line
is both wound and seam.
I said yes and I said wake and the world
crushed into fearful form.
Where will it take you when the heart
begins to clap its ruby meter beneath your sung-out throat?
Lauren Eggert-Crowe has been published in Interrupture, Sixth Finch, DIAGRAM, SpringGun, Puerto Del Sol, L.A. Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. An MFA graduate of the University of Arizona, she is the author of two poetry chapbooks: The Exhibit and In the Songbird Laboratory. She lives in Los Angeles.
