Heather Knox
Pardoned
after Adrienne Rich
It’s taken this long to write of it,
the wreck
and not the story of the wreck,
the thing I’ve come for.
Wretched, what they left,
what’s left of until death do us.
Aftermath, a reckless art,
and unforgiving.
Everyone offers advice unsolicited,
like lighthouse.
Thank you.
No, the light can’t find the depths.
How slippery a thing, hope.
Please tell me again how you’d do it,
how you’d command the wreck to rise
like a cock twitching towards wakefulness.
She climbed from a grave
without so much as dirt
underneath her fingernails.
The real difference between
ship and shipwreck
lies in grace.
This is what I came for.
The rest is story.
Heather Knox received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in decomP magazinE, Paperdarts, H.O.W. Journal, [PANK], and others. Her first poetry collection, Dowry Meat is available from Words Dance Publishing. She currently serves as Managing Editor of The Wardrobe and teaches poetry both within and outside of academia.
Return to May 2017 Edition
after Adrienne Rich
It’s taken this long to write of it,
the wreck
and not the story of the wreck,
the thing I’ve come for.
Wretched, what they left,
what’s left of until death do us.
Aftermath, a reckless art,
and unforgiving.
Everyone offers advice unsolicited,
like lighthouse.
Thank you.
No, the light can’t find the depths.
How slippery a thing, hope.
Please tell me again how you’d do it,
how you’d command the wreck to rise
like a cock twitching towards wakefulness.
She climbed from a grave
without so much as dirt
underneath her fingernails.
The real difference between
ship and shipwreck
lies in grace.
This is what I came for.
The rest is story.
Heather Knox received her MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in decomP magazinE, Paperdarts, H.O.W. Journal, [PANK], and others. Her first poetry collection, Dowry Meat is available from Words Dance Publishing. She currently serves as Managing Editor of The Wardrobe and teaches poetry both within and outside of academia.
Return to May 2017 Edition