Claudia Keelan



 

After a Lifetime Spent in Air


A deer tongues a salt lick
At the edge of my inner eye,
Its almond shaped eyes looking upward,
A medieval saint, insane thirst,
Or both.
 
From here it seems alright,
The earth, sloughing off its aborigines,
Rolling faster to scratch the itch:
Your round faced little darling,
One stage in a TB epidemic.
 
My neighbor is leaving her husband.
Everything is always “going around.”
I can’t catch anything.
White pines, thin ghosts in the dark,
Find me, even in the desert,
Living on the head of a pin.
 
My informer indicated the similarities
Between ululating and elation,
All lost to me,
A wave, an ordinary undulation
Effecting the mainland,
Until the sand is wiped clean.
 





© 2008 Electronic Poetry Review