Loading...

The Physical Plant as Prologue

Everything here measures: weight, effort, sin—
and everything costs in this seclusion
 
of daughters, the place an ark—its hold
all of a kind in an archaic, combed
 
order: straightened teeth, trained spines, the chapel’s
benches in rigid rows before crimson
 
kneeling pillows, slim beds in dormitories,
the muted ticking of practice rooms, the stalls
 
just-mucked, the halls humid with breathing.
And in the brushes, their hair—enough to line
 
the nests of a hundred generations of birds.
Other works by Claudia Emerson...



Top