Target practice
Sharper arrows rusting
beneath the page
that no string shall ever release
fast and square
against the tangled knot
clutching and checking
those same fingers
that should unearth
and ply the inexorable points.
Meanwhile
would the flexing and twanging
of an empty bow
avoid its growing lax
and our losing aim?
—Riccardo Duranti
____
from Poems in lieu of an essay on poems