The Calculus of Owls
Sarah J Gardner
dancing girl press, 2009
What Writing Is
Quiet thoughts grow crowless. Silver rustle,
floodline spindle. Finally, the water
faces itself: a rock glossed naked where
the current parts, storehouse of a broken peak.
Every tree here is a locked box, every thorn
a collar buttoned to the top, and yet
among the mosses: wild garlic, thyme.
Being conversant, I know all exchanges
begin on the tongue. Being human, I want
a taste. I have been along the nettled bank
and so have seen beneath the canopy, where
wasps pit their young in a paper hurricane
dry as a pharaoh’s heart a thousand years
in an earthen jar. None so born grow on honey.
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