From Mantis 5

KATE SHAPIRA

POEM FROM THE ENGLISH

Pronunciation of the word "hominid," in the ears

I borrowed, rings like "memory," one of many

lessons from the first nice day. It's

so nice, we justify who've been

bent on showing, flaunting and opening. Ears turn to

wire. Wire softens in the new heat, fillets skin.

I wanted to harm the bones. To have

at them and replace them with bad choices, what heroes

taught us about alternate stresses and

the expectations of observers in the spring:

rudimentary manipulation. Malleability and ductility, you and

I can speculate. What if after sitting in the grass

she stepped right off the rim without fuel or

reason? Our heavily treated approach to

English makes it hard to imagine, but by now

it's our best blade of contact. We

could barely get to the end of the story,

mother of all possibilities.