Heft

By Lisa Fishman b. 1966 Lisa Fishman

and hue

to have unheld a scale—

silver dishes little mirrors on their chains—

they go that way, This

and hoist

It’s not like looking into a pool,

to let your intelligence run away with you

Come back quarter size, apricot moon

A changeling is a child who

appeared under cover

of the ordinary, in exchange

The morning came

I have such pretty handwriting

no one said but I myself thought it

to myself so I matted it

like the grasses or a canvas or some

uncombed hair. It became a mess

which was the research of where things go.

A child could figure it out

if there is such a thing as “out”

in the sense of being figured

the thinking was like Origami,

everyone folded out of birds, into specific

kinds of birds

I call you

hickory

Biography

Lisa Fishman grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. She earned a BA at Michigan State University, where she studied with Diane Wakoski; an MFA at Western Michigan University, where she studied with William Olsen; and a PhD in literature at the University of Utah, with a dissertation on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetics.

Influenced by the British Romantic poets and the pastoral tradition, Fishman composes haunting poems that explore the . . .

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