HOWEVER FULL WE MAY SEEM | ITHAKA

HOWEVER FULL WE MAY SEEM

knowledge dolphins through us
like shrapnel
from       deer.

In the A-frame, a projector
flickers. All is not       gathered.

I jury-rig the truck.

We are capable of
                                  waiting.

If you must

be a planet,      O,
                                      stand

near
                    the house

 

 

 

ITHAKA

for Martha, the last known Passenger Pigeon, d. Sept. 1st, 1914

I’m rolling in the truck bed
wound in wire.
I can’t recall any jokes

so it seems I shouldn’t be
naked. Across the trestle, low as a grouse,
one hears rumors of freight.

The spring crow grows strong;
the hoarders’ hands
flutter & chime with coin.

“I want more,”
said the great Odysseus.
The singer has forgotten that,

& many other parts
of this song.

CAROLINE MANRING holds degrees from Cornell University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in Conduit, Drunken Boat, Seneca Review, H_NGM_N, Sixth Finch, and other journals. Her poetry chapbook, No Postman, was published by Split Oak Press in 2009. Caroline lives and teaches in the Finger Lakes region of New York state.

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