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Eschatology of the Lexicon

By J. Allyn Rosser b. 1957

They come down to us

rounding the corners of centuries

at an innocent jog, shedding letters

and most of the grand old meanings

to take on the sleek new hide

our day demands, a snappier

nap that can repel the stare

of a rather less tactful sun;

they come down to us com-

pounding, bounding in idiot

joy, they come with that trustful

tired old mutt look, that soft woof,

warm doggie sigh on the knee,

hoping for what? Some reason,

no doubt, to continue sounding.

Give me one good reason,

they come down to us saying,

as if we could have one without them.

Source: Poetry (January 2000).

Biography

J. Allyn Rosser was born in Pennsylvania and attended Middlebury College in Vermont as well as the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a doctorate. Her works include Bright Moves (1990), which won the Morse Poetry Prize, and Misery Prefigured (2001), winner of the Crab Orchard Award. In 2007 she was awarded The New Criterion Poetry Prize for a new book of poems entitled Foiled Again, published in the Fall of 2007. . . .

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