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| Chris Tanseer |
Chris Tanseer from Best New Poets 2012, ed. Matthew Dickman:
Appalachian
Homecoming
A
dinner bell reverberates through the valley,
Appalachian
slow-going blues, the leaves dance shadows
on the
forest floor
And
through my thoughts
As
if each were inseparable from the other.
I’m
at it again, rationing out my ration to the cedars and loons.
Wanderlust
in the loose veil of sundown.
Returning
to you seems easy
outside
the thing, like watching
An
osprey above the tree line swoop low, spear the water
And
talon a trout. I’ve known men who have lived
In
the gaps of syllables, wed
The
evenings outside the lit window of a former lover — intimate now
With
a whiff from the bedroom fan, or the familiar voice
Of
a distant body, a syllable astray. Syllable,
from
The
Greek syl-,
“together with,” and lab-,
“to take.”
Miles
are the easiest distance to traverse.
Odysseus
reached Penelope
In
just ten years. Which is why, after
Nobody
escaped from Polyphemus and, when
Nobody
revealed his name, it lived to haunt
the
blind hermit. Syllables astray.
Words
lack alone. I’ve known men who’ve waited lifetimes
In
the next room.
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