Poetry Magazine
The Apophatic
How can it not be
about engine,
secret blaze behind
the wheels? How not about
this no-way-to-resist seeing
but one side or another
since the rails quite insist
& iron's so right, always
running off its own might.
How never about freightage
or the outdoor face
in the indoor light?
A yesteryear's pall
over the day at hand? Not
about the passings-by
of nailed-shut houses
& grouse setting sail
from a rusty swing?
How not me out of uniform,
out of a sleeper's berth,
bare & barely rising
atop smoke & so little air left
in the soft underbelly
that I may meet—nay, embrace—
the hello-goodbye cloud.
Source: Poetry (June 2008).
Biography
Nance Van Winckel's fifth collection of poems, No Starling, is recently out from University of Washington Press. She is the recipient of two NEA poetry fellowships. She is also the author of three collections of short fiction and teaches in the MFA programs at Eastern Washington University and Vermont College. She will be the Stadler Poet in Residence at Bucknell in spring 2009.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, Arts & Sciences, Social Commentaries
POET’S REGION U.S., Northwestern
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Poem of the Day: Hand-Embroidered Mourning Piece for Clara Elisabeth Kriebel, 1779
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