Over here the circle theme continues
without a clock, uncountable
and unmarked despite a pouring sound,
despite slight lesions in the rock.
A hand is waving, silently, from under
cover of cloud we said was blanketing
the sky, and so, indeed, the sky is blank
but for a reverie of reach and touch;
the ancient, fingered dark.
The word I was trying to recall is fungible
but it doesn’t mean what I had thought,
so now I need to trade it for
another, one that means porous, means
mutable, means a shadow can pass through
unnoticed, means you turn and nothing
before comes after, nothing takes hold.
Copyright © 2023 by Ann Lauterbach, Door, Penguin Books
Hand (Giotto)
Ann Lauterbach