An Underworldliness
for Aileen Winter Mostel
Maybe a maker makes
another out—by the mark of the mechanism— keyboard cabaret— clown in love with his club (one foot's spondee). I turned it over
in my sleeping head— that fallow feeling— pillow a numbset's handskull till
from the fidgeting synapses rose an REM of ultivated answer— all-but-seeing
eye on a stem—the glancer born to blow by way of aneurysm— at what altitude or depth, what certitude or asterisk, nobody seeing could see through—
the star was visibly newfangled, brimming from a wave or cup one was to drain or fill—who knew?
Sidewise it angled, and shone up.
—Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh
is the author of Eyeshot, The Father of the Predicaments,
and Hinge & Sign: Poems, 1968-1993. She is the Milliman
Writer-in-Residence at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Originally published in the July/August
2006 issue of Boston Review
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