Poetry |

“Still Life: Interior”

Still Life: Interior

 

It is not me I’d wish

this forlorn barn

 

to contain, this shell become

over time translucent:

 

pale light allowed to break

through siding boards

 

as frail as lacewings. So Now,

I resolve, like the poet,

 

I’ll do nothing but listen. But sounds?

Not one arrives.

 

No hooves stir in mildewed straw,

for instance. The roof

 

doesn’t creak as it bellies up,

isn’t solid, encasing

 

a cloud of steam – the redolent

breaths of cattle.

 

If only a poem could be written

to render, or summon,

 

a rebirth here: that coon-hide

might be reclaimed

 

from mice, again cloaking a body

long since ripped out;

 

or hay bales moisten once more

high in the mow;

 

or gaskets grow plump in the pump,

restored from dryness,

 

like sea stars rescued from sand

by a tidal surge;

 

or skating insects gather

their shadows back

 

to the stock trough, filled

with the old cold water.

Contributor
Sydney Lea

Sydney LeaPoet Laureate of Vermont from 2011-2015 and a former Pulitzer finalist, founded and for 13 years edited New England Review. His twentieth book, and his thirteenth collection of poems, Here, was published by Four Way Books in 2019.

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