Staying Loss by Mary Pinard


 
 

It’s the staying intent
on, the insistence of

a pursuit, pursuing de-
spite distractions, not

settling for anything less
than absorption, a remove

from all the everyday relent-
lessness of the fruitless,

that long end-of-winter-
but-still-cold numbing numb-

ness, ness, ness, nonetheless
necessary for finding the core

of it, where the raw, puls-
ing underlife is, that hell-

dark river tumbling ever
and over the veined gravel

of loss that piles and unpiles it-
self at the bottom of my heart.

______

Of loss that piles and unpiles it-
self at the bottom of my heart,

dark river tumbling ever
and over the veined gravel

of it, where the raw, puls-
ing underlife is, that hell-

ness, ness, ness, nonetheless
necessary for finding the core,

that long end-of winter-
but-still-cold numbing numb

from all the everyday relent-
lessness of the fruitless,

settling for anything less
than absorption, a remove,

a pursuit, pursuing de-
spite distractions, or not,

it’s the staying intent
on, the insistence of.

 
 
 

Mary Pinard teaches in the Arts & Humanities Division at Babson College. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals, and she has published critical essays on poets, including Lorine Niedecker and Alice Oswald. Portal, her collection of poems, was published by Salmon Press. She was born and raised in Seattle. For more information, please visit www.marypinard.com.