chorus from the good dark
*
dear missing,
a channel by land that gestures and juts, doesn’t touch
the water rushes shelters every sound shouted into it
the form of the shore is lost to the counting of sand
the count is lost to the sounds. If I could
I’d rearrange us! shove selves /shell letters/shelve
us (water, surfacing itself) inside ourselves,
as ever, as yours,
missing
*the gossip
In alongside intuition a certain new loneliness creeps.
When she found out she might be the inventor of herself.
The light the words her eyes spilled.
*the reader
The spread reveals me in three:
Magician, Star and Liar.
Hands, light, and mouth.
(The tools with which we contrive)
And smoke trying out the windowpane
lights rays trying in.
My hand is kept still
by my stance.
These poems are from the middle section of the manuscript the good dark. The work performs query and getting lost… I’m always looking for tangible evidence of the unknowable, which is mimetic for a consciousness peering into unconsciousness. The poems leave a trail of evidence so it can get back.
Annie Guthrie is a writer and jeweler living in Tucson. She has poems published or forthcoming in realpoetik, Everyday Genius, The Volta, EOAGH, Tarpaulin Sky, Fairy Tale Review, H_NGM_N, Ploughshares, Many Mountains Moving and more. She works and teaches at the UA Poetry Center.