An Underworldliness
for Aileen Winter MostelMaybe 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
About the Author
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.
