Current Issue: Fall/Winter 2011

Thought, Barefoot  
Tory Adkisson

—from a fragment by Sappho

The night:           there is a blue thread
running from the sky’s
nude seam. We watched           as the azul drooled
                                                                        down

the broken lip of every
fountain. The night before:       you bruised
                                            your lip, cut

against the threshold
of your own teeth. You thought someone
                            was there beyond           the stuffing

inside the boxes, thought you
discerned a flitting pair of moonless eyes,

pallid, an iota of waiting. You kept the string

tied to a callus lover, around his bare
torso. I placed a bit on my tongue,

handed you the bridle—
                                                          crop-lashed at the hip.

               Every breath, the clouds
crumbled like feta in the briny water

where the wingtips of little stone
cherubs were still visible.

Among the liquid dust.                               Their music mute.

Tomorrow night:            we are going
to trust where the arrow lands, & follow—

I thought:          barefoot, because no matter
                                                          how small the wound
the stone cuts into our heels,

                                             there will still be a scar
               worth saving & you—a faith I need
                                                                             to break.

 

Tory Adkisson currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he is both an MFA candidate at The Ohio State University, and the poetry editor of The Journal. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in West Branch, CutBank, Painted Bride Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Cave Wall. His book reviews appear on the Ploughshares blog.