By: Matthew Mitchell
With thanks to Helen Vendler for helping me appreciate Wallace Stevens, and take gentle argument with him Call the roller of seventeen footers, the distant one. Bid him expose the mind of wind, churn expanses of sea cream. Let ape creatures flee sticky Sex Wax thoughts and let their crow cousins silence their garrulous utterings. Let physics be finale of dream unless there be consciousness in materiality. Take from the box of cardboard the orange frog that once was our fertility talisman, and hang it on the white fir sacrifice. If it is stained, then thanks to the messes of wenches and to concupiscent curds. Let the songs of winter sing, let them. Wind too will blow in the spring.
Matthew Mitchell writes and teaches math near the banks of the American River in Sacramento, CA. His poems have been published in Kestrel, Other Rooms Press, and Poetry Now, and several of his audio essays have aired on KQED public radio.
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