Zone : Zero

Stephanie Strickland

A sample poem from the book

 

Open Cage

To forget what has happened is a sacrament, an access
of power: the furor of these bronze leaves helpless to surround
a shrieking

ball of birdsong
gathered underneath towering
cauldrons of gold.

For nothing do you grieve. They twitter, the sound
careening like curraghs on unnavigable water. Nothing.
Clamor. The wind dies down. Memory

gone
visibly burning in the gold sea of the air,
cinders drifting on the black gold of the ground.