Because We Never Practiced With The Escape Chamber

by Alice Fulton

Alice Fulton

we had to read the instructions as we sank.
In a hand like carded lace. Not nuclear warheads
on the sea's floor nor the violet flow over the reactor
will outlive this sorrowful rhyme. Vain halo! My project
becalmed, I'll find I've built a monument
more passing than a breeze. It will cost us,
Pobrecito. We can't buy a prayer. Did you call
my name or was that the floorboard
wheezing? These memories won't get any bigger,
will they? I think something is coming that will
vastly improve our quietude. I'm growing
snow crystals from vapor in anticipation and praying
for the velvet-cushioned kneeler that I need to pray.
I made this little sound for you to wait in.

From: 
2015, Barely Composed (W. W. Norton & Company)





Last updated May 13, 2019