from monumental
Sarah Trott

     

the inside of things is the outside, like the inside

of a whale is the bone and the bone

becomes the outside of the marrow of the core or

in the case of birds, of the hollow and here, the hollow

is the outside of empty and empty

is the inside and the outside of all things

          everything is mostly the same and space

          is the part in between but the same

          as everything still and round

          and here is the look of being stricken

          and here is how it surrounds

          implements worry across

          the news and local sections

          this air of stricken

          clouds and everywhere

          we are everything the cloud

          is much the same as a fingernail

          or cloth mouthguard

in the instance of collapse it all rushes in a cloud of dusty

making it colorful naturally that's the way color works

naturally to ward off to seem like poison the faces rip off quick

to lose one constitutes a problem a separate a problem concerning holding

and sometimes it ends in broken

things maybe furniture or glassware from a county fair

 

          the worst you could ever know a fire or shaking knees
          it hasn't ended for months they're still cutting with saws
          outside breaking into the other side to save the pieces of lives

aggressive is how you do          pushing around into pools and lakes

mammoth is a largeness of attempt a hunt for bodies tethered to porches
          for fear of floating

in the holdouts there is resistance a love 
of animals a please let me stay with all the bodies
and my favorite streets are cobbled and dark       

                    far from settled the language

                    of the article was charred said rubbed

                    off and it meant faces

                    and the goggles it said melted to her

                    cheeks and now it's repeated

                    here with the same words

                    but in a new order but meaning

                    the same thing effecting

                    nothing not making anything live

                    again not the way it was before

                    with fingers unfused and fathers

                    and mothers at home to feed

                    the way many do hand to mouth

//   Advance   //