Poetry Magazine
Apostrophe to the Apostrophe
Small floater, you stay above the fray,
a wink at nothing's nod, a raised brow
watching p's and q's, a selfless mote
between I and m, a little horn of plenty
spilling plurals, disdaining the bottom line.
Unlike your twin relatives—groupies of wit
and wisdom, hangers on in the smallest talk—
you work alone, dark of a crescent moon.
Laboring in obscurity, you never ask why,
never exclaim, never tell anyone where to go.
Caught up between extremes, you are both
a turning away and a stepping forth,
a loss and an addition. You are the urge
to possess everything, and the sure sign
that something is missing.
Source: Poetry (June 2001).
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This poem originally appeared in the June 2001 issue of Poetry magazine
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Biography
Eric Nelson's recent credits include Yankee, Arts & Letters, and The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. He is on sabbatical for Georgia Southern University, working on new poems and revising a manuscript tentatively titled The Black House.
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Arts & Sciences, Reading & Books
Poetic Terms Ode
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