Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SMALL TALK, by JOANIE MACKOWSKI


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SMALL TALK, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Someone pours more wine. A black moth opens
Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary


Someone pours more wine. A black moth opens
its wings at my feet and flaps off, larger than the wall.
Orange rind on a magazine, their weapons
were beautiful -- and a shadowy blossom unrolls

its deep blue petals from underneath the sofa.
A woman's hands. A man reaches across --
they had words for only three colors, and
I never learned the third. I put down my glass

and start to wrap my feet with blue-black, silver-black,
no word for stair, for window pane, knees,
hips, legs dark as eels, the mouth looming
by the lamp, and they had words we don't, words

for quiet or different kinds of shadows, human
shadows or those cast by the banyan trees.

http://www.middlebury.edu/~nereview






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