Lightsey Darst
Wildflowers: columbine, woodbine, rue & ironweed.
These hands have long been asking the question
What was it that (every evidence erodes
……..in time) soft
tissue my lips, my face
I was cutting flowers I was picking blackberries
a pharaoh’s daughter a suicide a hooker
……..the identification carefully made and mother
yes this is my fleshless grin, what was under it
(sweet girl)
I have worn ivory and cold river stone, teeth
….and enemy skin
….the dogs have been at my legbone
….the dogs have been at my armbone
All that I am, channeled in slow rot
& sinking further into this alien architecture
……..of the inside
…………I listen to a man whistle, a strange man breathe
……..water falling out of the sky
fourteen years
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Lightsey Darst received a 2007 literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Recent work appeared in The Antioch Review, The Literary Review, Gulf Coast, and New Letters.
