No People in It

By Emily Skillings
                        for JA
 
I flutter in order
to enter
the phrase’s silver.
 
Jackdaws have launched nearby
this time, silk green and ripped,
the movement a kind of chafing thinking.
 
Oh he’s marking
terrain right there—
right there with his
 
unmade song. The shadow kids
whip fronds, froth air up
into heat, pure and simple
 
“violence of the eye.” Wild iris
ink, wet in the margin’s stage.
Well, hadn’t this testament begun
 
to carry its chime in stripes?
That’s when I knew he was going away
from me, towards the sound.
 
Like the ring on the table
it can’t be decentered.
Rim around the recent.
 
Ashes, ashes,
A bright tangled seeming.
 

Copyright Credit: Emily Skillings, "No People in It." Copyright © 2018 Emily Skillings. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2018)