W.L. Harvey
symphony with no sound
seared wound
neon skein unwound
gold molten on stones
at water’s edge
clouds opening mouths
of carmine & plum
with long teal tongues
licking down at a lake
of mercury
gleamed rich & viscous
as annealed glass
stamped with
occasional concentric
memories of fish
& behind a dark-turret isle
a blast disc of sun
doubled then fractaled
& fractaled again
to singe holes
in my vision that spread
a dark-spotted veil
over everything
when the madness passed
I could almost
separate lake from a sky
whose pink exhale
blurred a surface
shimmered with light
beginning to die
down into gold & lead
& that so help me God
was when I heard it
—the loon—sobbing
her long laughing cry
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Rebecca Foust’s seventh book, ONLY (Four Way Books 2022) received a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Her recent poems, found in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Common, Narrative, POETRY, and Ploughshares, were runners-up for the 2022 Missouri Review Editors Prize and won the Pablo Neruda, CP Cavafy, and James Hearst Poetry Prizes. Recognitions include Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee fellowships and a Marin County Poet Laureateship.
Photo credit: Jeremy Thornton