Poem of the Day - April 3rd

corydon & alexis, redux

by D. A. Powell
and yet we think that song outlasts us all: wrecked devotion

the wept face of desire, a kind of savage caring that reseeds itself

and grows in clusters

oh, you who are young, consider how quickly the body deranges

itself

how time, the cruel banker, forecloses us to snowdrifts white as

god's own ribs

what else but to linger in the slight shade of those sapling branches

yearning for that vernal beau. for don't birds covet the seeds of

the honey locust

and doesn't the ewe have a nose for wet filaree and slender oats

foraged in the meadow

kit foxes crave the blacktailed hare: how this longing grabs me by

the nape

guess I figured to be done with desire, if I could write it out

dispense with any evidence, the way one burns a pile of twigs

and brush

what was his name? I'd ask myself, that guy with the sideburns

and charming smile

the one I hoped that, as from a sip of hemlock, I'd expire with him

on my tongue

silly poet, silly man: thought I could master nature like a misguided

preacher

as if banishing love is a fix. as if the stars go out when we shut

our sleepy eyes