by William Ross
Perhaps an angel looks like everything / we have forgotten
how lost and single in the orphaning air
child of a short spark in a shapeless country
I shall place her like a sword or a mirror
a map for / those who would climb through the hole in the sky
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance
squeezing crows blood / against a white sky
one-woman waterfall, she wears
a cage for a heart
a drinker of horizons, each foot a rainbow trout
Take the nails and bang them into the weeping painting
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends
created purely from glass the saint stands
hanging from a / broken hinge is a stag a crucifix
Perhaps an angel—[John Ashbery] how lost and single—[Margaret Atwood]
child of a short spark—[Dylan Thomas] I shall place her—[Pablo Neruda]
a map for /those—[Joy Harjo] She is in her place—[Walt Whitman]
squeezing crows blood—[Denise Levertov] one-woman waterfall— [X.J. Kennedy] a cage for a heart—[Sarah Davies] a drinker of horizons—[Estill Pollock] Take the nails— [Michael Farrell] In a life—[T.S. Eliot]
created purely from glass—[Geoffrey Hill] hanging from a / broken hinge—
[William Carlos Williams]
William Ross is a Canadian writer and visual artist living in Toronto. His poems have appeared in Rattle, The New Quarterly, Humana Obscura, Bicoastal Review, Underscore Magazine, Amethyst Review, Bindweed Magazine Anthology, The Hooghly Review, Heavy Feather Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others.
Emerge Literary Journal 