He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in thesign up to receive a new poem-a-day in your inbox
sign up
Recorded for Poem-a-Day, July 1, 2016.
Vapor
Tonight I’m to occupy a single breath:
to let it slowly out as an open kettle might
release its steam, left long on the stove.
Eventually all substance turns to vapor
& accumulates in the air, then falls
again as a globe under its own weight.
Bodies must be near each other, it seems,
even when the result is simple collapse.
Only the globe is never falling—
it’s the thing that imitates the globe
falls into it, as I now imitate, & fail,
the voice of my father, who sits breathing
with his dog at the mouth of the river.
My breath, too, rises & falls. Listen.
Copyright © 2016 by Martin Rock. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 1, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
Copyright © 2016 by Martin Rock. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 1, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
Martin Rock
Martin Rock is the author of Residuum (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2015).