Oliver Rice
A Child Coughing Deep in Her Chest
It is worth asking, Stella,
wise lady from the old neighborhood,
what the bulldozer’s philosophy could be,
clearing, grading for the multi-use development,
upheaving an arrowhead,
a button from a pioneer’s bodice,
a fragment from a daguerreotype,
a bottle still containing spirits.
At midday, Stella,
as the operator is having his lunch
in the cab of the silent machine,
do you hear voices
saying oh, God,
do-si-do,
it is the dailiness of the weeks,
singing My Wild Irish Rose?
In the afternoon, Stella,
when you are having your reverie,
while the real world equivocates,
are you visited by intimations
of a lonely highway,
ripening blueberries,
a hunter and his prey,
a procession of imagoes?
Page(s) 134
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