By Haley Thompson

 

Be that when you hold in your mouth

the bones that roll against your teeth

you are being honest in your destruction

 

Hold truth self evident in each scar you touch

on another in places only you have allowed

yourself to go.  Because this is your day

 

and those who pay for it alone in bare rooms

on floors making and unmaking a mound

of themselves that will never set. A vocabulary

 

from the drips of a horse’s mouth, she said

and I let her. Us who walk with our passion shied

need not  a finger toward the sky. To know the wind

 

is blowing is to feel it and it is right. Tonight dream

big. Sleep out in the field among the herd. In the daylight

bring it inside with you. We are burning our way through this,

root and all.

 

 

_____________

Haley Thompson is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was born and raised

in Iowa and currently lives in Iowa City. On weekends she is a writing teacher for the Iowa Youth Writing

Project, a non-profit program that helps local kids of all ages to become more involved in their writing.

During the week she is a manager of a large consignment store outside of Iowa City. This is Haley’s first

publication.

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Posted by Mel. View all posts by Mel
Friday, July 1st, 2011 7:55 am
Categories: Issue 5.1, Poetry