Ishion Hutchinson Poems

At nights birds hammered my unborn
child's heart to strength, each strike bringing
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A furnace in my father's voice; I prayed for the coal stove's
roses, a cruise ship lit like a castle
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Brailed up from birth, these obdurate, obituary corners
of second life the hospital light ravened solstice
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Lesson of the day: Syria and Styria.
For Syria, read: His conquering banner shook from Syria.
And for Styria: Look at this harp of  blood, mapping.
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The old trees shake out medals at midday
to the ship paused for a meteor's blunting
glimpse in the windy yellow of the water,
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They are back, the miniature

explosion of florets, cut away

just days before by the mower.
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Ground-levelled, behind a line drawn,
he took aim at a circle of precious marbles,
precise, interrupting the passaging ants,
the shot was fired, and if they had known,
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Late April rain fogs the Wasatch
and turns its wrought peaks steel;
a lightning crack draws a photograph
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A calm sign in the trees of May: she's dead,
not like this dirge staining the air, her name
recited in the camphor-house where the chalk
figurine, that haberdashery sphinx reclines,
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My first snow, I open the pages
of Montale, the scent of iron
and light coming out of heads
...