Amy Ross

and at noon, bitter. There is something to
be said

for wearing another's hands. For example--
dead one to dead one-- waking.

Ask Paul Celan how it goes.
He's out there, standing on the edge

of an echo. It's no coincidence, year after year,
how the brilliant leaves turn-in

against themselves. Watch what kicks up
under your feet. Watch the blue sky's almonding.

shift-mouths-shift-open:

Whose hands are these? Whose lungs,
lungs and lips? Whose intestines stretched

around the day? Ask Paul Celan,
swoop down on your God

imagined language. Luck is a rag
caught in the branches, a scrap of human warmth.

Lucky is the one who never
believes: the wound-wooed disciple,

the wind in the trees.

Amy Jo Ross lives and works in Washington, DC. Her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Visions International, Potomac Review and Winners: A Retrospective of the Washington Prize.

In Posse: Potentially, might be ...