Back to Issue Nineteen.

therefore wander

BY KEVIN CRAFT

 

That cabbage moth fluttering
like loose ends or an old itch in the vagus

nerve finds the underside of a spirea leaf
to cling to

at the garden end of a windy
day—and then? Long night.

Let’s not worry about plot.
Restlessness carries you

from leaf to leaf, the moon shines
on your deeds, good

and bad. To investigate what’s at stake
for a moth scrawling its nervous

syllogism from porch light to candle
and back, carrying the singe

of proximity with it,
approximating the breadth of the material

world in its stark
abandonment of principle, its even

underhandedness, requires no scapegoat,
no backstory

of blindness and scorn to cut through
to the inevitable

avalanche, the white-out conducive
to moving through fog

to figure grounded in fog
to disfigurement. Each time

I hold out my hand,
you escape.

Kevin Craft lives in Seattle and directs the Written Arts Program at Everett Community College. He also teaches at the University of Washington’s Rome Center, and served as editor of Poetry Northwest from 2009 – 2016. His first book, Solar Prominence (2005), was selected by Vern Rutsala for the Gorsline Prize from Cloudbank Books. A new collection, Vagrants & Accidentals, will be published by UW Press in spring 2017.

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