Dispossessed of the Whole the Word of the Whorl
of the light rain of the drying of the foliage
phosphorescing noon eyes shower
the ground, saturated with falling, petals
your feet, irises in wet dirt
r o o t s t e m s t y l e s t i g m a
narcissi soiling the water with aspiration reflection
you take for thirst
what slakes of you the whorling unworlding, the lack of
sift through soft-spoken, even callused hands
of the hands and what they do
not say: lines veins hairs marks
of the hands and what they only say
between the lines: their caress
of the dirt: of the sky: of the feet: of the waves of
sun blears chromatic
edges that compose the garden burst
of rabbit overtaken into the thickness
(its empty errant secret)
(thickening)
flies thicken
exposed turtle eye
wide as any moment of (shuttering)
Tongue I gave you (saying)
I is the truth you ease with release
—Michael Tod Edgerton
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First published in Denver Quarterly 40: 3. The final stanza varies lines
from Forrest Gander's poem "The Hugeness of That Which Is Missing," collected
in Torn Awake.