I don’t know where words go
Do they travel through the trauma of wound
for 238,000 miles only to settle
in a crater on the immature moon
Or do they flow down the ache behind
the eyes only to sink through storm-stirred
layers beneath the tides of a shadowlake
Do they blow like a wind through
tendon and vein vibrating together
like a fever field after a soft rain
I need them to open me into
a tyranny of flowers
A capillary wave erupting within
An alien lung inhaling and exhaling
As the warmth of the sun stretches to hold
everything, and I remember mornings
with the prayer of bread singing in us
how we traded grief for the dark crows
circling each other on one endless wing
Do you see it, too?
The way your body steps through
this meadow
of sound
Peter Grandbois is the author of fourteen books, the most recent of which is Domestic Bestiary. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard and teaches at Denison University in Ohio. You can find him at www.petergrandbois.com.