Into the Teeth of the Wind

Selected poem from Volume IV, Issue 1

Teeth cover

Patrick Mackay

Crickets

At first I heard them outside and through
The walls of my room like shrill blood
Pumping in arteries, the pulse this night

Balancing my off-keel desire to give up.
Keys being made against the grind. The excite
Of messages in telephone wires. Curlicues of song,

As if small wood shavings flame lit,
And in them the sound of fire's tongue. What
If they rounded the plane of night,

Each chirp a nicking out at dark, lathe and soft pound
Of the nocturnal lift; lift of the weight that
Day leveled us with, and then, like gravity, our hearts?

They stroke what if syllables short and bright,
Spell a name missing that sings us to sleep. But sound,
If we could see your vibrating body, or wrap

Our fingers about your swell, what would you feel like,
Your fluidity, the grasp and fathoming of you? Tell.
Now, All I can do is unwind you as you light

Evening in my heart, flooding every crevasse of the night
With little gods that stop and start.

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Last modified by Britta Gustafson on 5/4/09.

College of Creative Studies