Saturday, February 2, 2019

Poetry: Earthenware

 

Earthenware

She looked at me
with curving, symmetrical
arches, and I knew right away
that souls abhor an untimely silence.

Somewhere, somewhere,
the specter of a daffodil blooms
in a radiograph. And somewhere,
somewhere, I wonder if
everything needs to be seen after all.

Yet when she looked at me, I felt
pale all over. Like uncooked chicken,
or a freshly sliced shallot, I felt the fresh
undifferentiated sameness of my mind.

A reflection under construction. Both rare
and dangerous. A meteorite falling
in North Wales or a cluster of nebulae in Hydra.

Isn’t this infinite region of emptiness fulfilling?
This vital break with the vicissitudes of life-
as they are slowly cooked in small earthenware dishes.

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George Cassidy Payne is an independent writer, domestic violence counselor, and adjunct instructor in the humanities at Finger Lakes Community College.

George's blogs, essays, letters, poems, and photographs have been published in a wide variety of national and international outlets such as USA Today, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, The Buffalo News, Albany Times-Union, Syracuse Post Standard, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, The Toronto Star, The Minority Reporter, Chronogram Journal, Ovi Magazine, CounterPunch, Moria Poetry Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, Adirondack Daily Enterprise, and more.

George's first book of poetry, A Time Before Teachers, is available at Amazon.com.


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