Skip to content

Log Out

×

Poetry

But most dangerous of all is the dream
of the elysian fields, the casting pool
by the cliffs of the arroyo, a serum
of clouds above and below, as if you,

like the cloud, were made oblivious:
a drizzle of hooks severing the mirror.
You cannot view what the chokecherry views,
the bare tuber that digs beneath the mire.

To never fear what fear invokes: this day
polished with a homeland’s foreign water.
Most dangerous of all is the body
that is no body, emptied of the clutter,

of the veins that arm the briar, the rose.
Like hope. Your heart the size of your two fists.
Who crosses your path once you have closed
that gate; what barbed root, what writhing fish.

Image depends on its subscribers and supporters. Join the conversation and make a contribution today.

+ Click here to make a donation.

+ Click here to subscribe to Image.


The Image archive is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Receive ImageUpdate, our free weekly newsletter featuring the best from Image and the world of arts & faith

* indicates required