Friday, July 5, 2019

Mary Newell, 3 Piths


“Towards the Separation of Fine from Coarse,”
from the series Separations in the Silence,
image by Sue Burickson



3 Piths


In the pith of afterdays

snow-pocks

wind-scatter

lint-retrieval

doleful read-out

candor quaint

customs remembered in sketch

deflections                                           

without conviction

revived by plans for the yet-to-be

the present so hard to imagine


In the pith of a diamonded terroir
to dig illicit
trust-famine                                                      

cracked earthworks rust
gum-gucked walls ooze         
adobe crumbles
                                                               
angular shovels warp
the arms of the shovelers
tied

lips white from thirst
terse from unspeaking
tight-eyed                                                      
     
gleam relinquish
escape contortion
ash-crawl 


in the pith of wrack

ruin-ation

post-partum obsequies

still
born

afterbirth gory   grisly    gulp
run amuck

rumi-nation
jimmy up

crank open
the crack

fingers cross for
another run-through                            

laugh at ephemera, wear purple
bellow or         pray           

bridge the mirror
eyes rivet



—Mary Newell