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dancing girl press, 2014
$7.00 Alison Fraser is a PhD student at the University at Buffalo, where she works for the Emily Dickinson Journal and the Poetry Collection. Horse-scrape What I wanted to be then I have now Bolt and shot, I canceled and cursed, loosened feet So bridle my throatlatch; confirmation faults Before the outside blood, and my ribs are well-sprung. Misshapen legs and narrow chest, poor bones to hold. Eroding I left Assateague to fall away; though soft, eventually worn, The island drifts westward; a full body’s long and not only skin, And not bellied without its water. I’m telling you I can fall again And after loving you my breast beats once more And the mountain beasts can cause no fear In ribs that cage amore like mine. Only hours until you lay away the days From face and body, standing in ocean waves Channel me to Chincoteague, alive in band And back to the water’s verge. A woman’s shadow carries behind you And in each wall I see the scrape, requicken in trod sorrow In quiet nests turned around and engraved from the back— This the hilly birth of my erasure, first and unexpected. Aces are heroes and the grave preserves life And each time you leave I will follow. Having held horses by the stage door, knowing what then I cannot bring back to you, who became enough for tears, Too human for the city or the town. |