Autumn Ritual with Hate Turned Sideways

  —i pull the hate
on a rope ladder to the resting zone…
               H
                   H
                       H
    pull the A on down.
A
     A
          A
           Put that sick A to bed. Get well, A. Pinched
           fire. Bring the T down now
                                                         
                                                                  T
                                                                        T
                                                                              T
    Roman cross before the Christian thing.
Bump bump. Put that T to bed. Put
         that Garamond T
to bed before we kill someone with it. Such as:
    Whack-whack. Weapon contractors in Virginia.
Whack. Get well T. Won’t kill with you.
            Now. Being
         able to breathe for the E,
breathe into the prongs. Slide on its back.
                                                          
   Put the E to bed. Get well, E.
Weird shapes around campfires
         below the mind.
Tiny fires with hurt earth spirits
         as in Aeschylus. Resting letters now
           so they can live—

From Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire (Wesleyan University Press, 2013). Copyright © 2013 by Brenda Hillman. Used with permission of Wesleyan University Press.