Issue 6, Spring/Summer 2008

Trace by Lightsey Darst

The ones we love fall like leaves
      from the winter alder. This woman
singing on the tinny radio, I don’t think she holds
the cathedral of her throat to her
anymore, her sound now

      a slow root’s stretch.
In the north, October, a river begins: red maple heart

spins downstream,
by miles unfleshing.
That was ever should now not be:

not the row of heavy stones, but the sagging,
coreless ground. Not the triple harp in its case,               
but air
after green music.