"Bite-Sized Poem" by Paisley Rekdal

Guy Lebeda of the Utah Arts Council sends this "Bite-Sized Poem of the Month" by Paisley Rekdal. Paisley directs the creative writing program at the University of Utah in SLC. When she was teaching at the University of Wyoming, she won a 2002 Wyoming Arts Council creative writing fellowship.

Here is this month's "Bite-Sized Poem" from Utah:


Swallows
by Paisley Rekdal

So ignorant of the world I think it’s pleasure first

that makes them dip hallucinatory arcs
across this foggy, close-cropped field
and not the insects wet legs kick up:

here, and almost here, these

sharp darts that stop me in my tracks: poised, senseless
to their direction skimming
just below, the lingering white

only they see through and negotiates where I

am less than a stone to them, less than a flea
in the dun bellies flashing under a slick blue back–

Wings clip the brief air between us,

scythe the sweet middle where sea mist

seeps its yellow curls, the step ahead and behind me blurred
to the same cold capacities:

somewhere a twist of fence, a scar

of ragged earth a truck tore open
to work itself free.

Dark shank of hair
gleaming in the wet, skin frozen to the bone,

a pair of deer feeding at the wild
last hedge of raspberries.

To see Paisley perform this poem, follow this link:
http://www.nowplayingutah.com/profile/detail/596