Michelle Taransky




DESPITE THE WOODS

This is a novel
Reciting disease
After disease after
Spending the season
At a stranger’s place
Wood-evil halting— I

Take it broken
Teach cruelty to the house
To say hello to the loser like
It doesn’t matter who knows
Who forgave who for taking

The house from shipwreck
Reason why you are the whale
Here not in the road but
The road to another
Picture where we are

Wolvewhales and sheepwhales
You could be the woodcut
Cut into the wood
That sounds like worship
Stops like

Stop saying beautiful things
I’m worried about losing
The house the whole
Fall when
Starts from scratch
The scratch

WHEN IS IS NOT THE

question behind loss

replacing the effect

concerned with support

what she says the work

is all about—a thing

being a being.  Our own

that we don’t own it