Poetry Magazine
Swing Low
We aren’t the solid men.
We bend like the number seven.
Dig at corners, eat cobwebs, we
are barefoot and bare-legged.
We hang like leaves in autumn.
We aren’t the stolid men.
We scribble in familiar ink
about sunfalls and night. We
see the white in the sky, and sigh.
We lie with penciled grins.
We aren’t the men, any men.
We rip at the neck and wonder why
while rattlers roll in. Bent
as a number, crooked, sundered,
we aren’t the idle lightning
if black thunder.
Source: Poetry (November 2012).
Biography
Rickey Laurentiis was born in New Orleans. He has received a Chancellor’s Fellowship from Washington University in St. Louis, where he is completing his MFA.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, Life Choices, The Body, The Mind, Arts & Sciences, Poetry & Poets
Poetic Terms Free Verse
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