And when I took each coin
from his eye in payment,
I saw the minted eagle
pressed into the skin there,
its image laid so long,
first in silver, then flesh,
the lid too was coined,
and thus only a thing
of value when passed on,
as cells in life are passed
in trade for newer cells.
But this day, like any,
was unlike others, and
as I pierced the harbor
with my prow, he woke,
then stepped ashore to look
at the great white cliff,
his eyes too quick to see
the watery blink eyes need
to see, to know the world
we spin is winged in dark
and never seen again.
is the author of twenty books, including, most recently, Immanent Distance: Poetry and the Metaphysics of the Near at Hand (U of MI, 2015), Black Anthem (Tampa Review Prize, U of Tampa, 2016), Gold Bee (Helen C. Smith Award, Crab Orchard Award, Southern Illinois University Press, 2016), Sacrum (Four Way Books, 2017), and Blackout Starlight: New and Selected Poems 1997-2015 (L. E. Phillabaum Award, LSU, 2017). Five books are forthcoming: Rise and Fall of the Lesser Sun Gods (Elixir Book Prize, Elixir Press), Frankenstein’s Children (Lost Horse Press), Dear Reader (Free Verse Editions), Scar (Etruscan Press), and Words Written Against the Walls of the City (LSU). Presently, he is a Regents Professor of English at University of North Texas.
