by Austin Adams
I wish to sing of nothing worshipped,
Of fact with fangs much sharper
Than the soul’s hard hide.
Real meaning is the vastest hunger,
This head wound of dreams the days
And truth elide.
Surely it is snowing.
It is not.
But it must be that—
It must not be anything.
And so knowing is
A tourniquet to stanch the smallest sorrows
That rip and howl around the silent, gigantic cleft
Of is – to lick at the scraps of the soul
When the full engorgement of the feast
Cannot even be guessed.
What can I say
That is perfect
______
Austin Adams is a writer from Tennessee. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Prelude, The Offing, Adelaide, The Millions, minor literature[s], Poor Yorick, Hamilton Stone Review, and Verdad, among other outlets. He has attended the Ashbery Home School Workshop and the Kenyon Review Poetry Workshop.
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