Leslie Brown, City View
Wave
Rita Rouvalis Chapman
Beating
like the church bell
sending out the hours,
it waves: a prairie flower,
ghost of the former
meadow, ghost
of this old city block.
The telephone crossarm, stripped
of its landlines,
twisting and swaying,
split and fragile,
like driftwood, shape
shrinking with each low
bump. We don’t mean to
step into the echo; nobody means
to be a curse, a ghost sign
pointing back at another ghost.
So we swell and swell, a pulp
that wants to pull apart, each smallness
a split, each split an old sorrow: smooth, salted.
Until we snap in the wind, kiss
live wire, become a fat
pop of seeds, light falling
to the ground
unseen
wave after wave
each tiny motion
an approach
each approach
a departure.
Rita Rouvalis Chapman
Beating
like the church bell
sending out the hours,
it waves: a prairie flower,
ghost of the former
meadow, ghost
of this old city block.
The telephone crossarm, stripped
of its landlines,
twisting and swaying,
split and fragile,
like driftwood, shape
shrinking with each low
bump. We don’t mean to
step into the echo; nobody means
to be a curse, a ghost sign
pointing back at another ghost.
So we swell and swell, a pulp
that wants to pull apart, each smallness
a split, each split an old sorrow: smooth, salted.
Until we snap in the wind, kiss
live wire, become a fat
pop of seeds, light falling
to the ground
unseen
wave after wave
each tiny motion
an approach
each approach
a departure.