JO THORPE

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Remain in Light

How this bright world will shift


as if gripped at the root by some coil of intent
so a shudder is felt. It can happen like this


between cutting the bark from a field pumpkin –
that horn-grey shield –


and washing the knife


the day just gone as expansive as Mahler,
the heady swell and bloom of it


but your voice on the phone now

stretched as any wire
                                        or risk


and newly thinned
as if skating over a hole in the steadiness


the kind that is capable of filleting a future.


You are talking then not talking
my hands unable to dismantle even bread.


It’s here I look up
and see what surely blessing feels like –


this sky that over the rim of hills is pure gold
and luminous. This sky that over the rim of hills


is pure gold,
and luminous.

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