Handle
Like the handle of a shovel stuck in a mountain of sand
containing the name of one who had quietly slipped
your mind ...
haunting unbudgeable shovel jammed
in a mountain of everything unplanned, tipped
up at an angle ungrippable without
falling — someone you meant to get back to,
make sense of, dig gently firmly out
and do right by, as if you could rescue —
the name gaining surge, force, significance
from sheer numberlessnesses of grains
of neglect, the alp of everyone avalanch-
ing back on your little shovelful of names,
halfway up the midden of those you have failed,
this mountain of slippage you climb,
that every day from now on is a failed
attempt to mount or descend in time.
From Poetry Magazine, Volume 186, Number 1, April 2005. Used with permission.
containing the name of one who had quietly slipped
your mind ...
haunting unbudgeable shovel jammed
in a mountain of everything unplanned, tipped
up at an angle ungrippable without
falling — someone you meant to get back to,
make sense of, dig gently firmly out
and do right by, as if you could rescue —
the name gaining surge, force, significance
from sheer numberlessnesses of grains
of neglect, the alp of everyone avalanch-
ing back on your little shovelful of names,
halfway up the midden of those you have failed,
this mountain of slippage you climb,
that every day from now on is a failed
attempt to mount or descend in time.
From Poetry Magazine, Volume 186, Number 1, April 2005. Used with permission.
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