Reedy striations don't occlude the beneath-
earthy mash of leaves, flat pepper flakes, layered,
tips protruding, tender-desolate above a mirror
surface, gently pressing on horse-mane, nest material,

tickle-brush, fringe. Buff block-shapes further down,
ghost-bits of green-green, a lone leaf burned white.

My thrown stone skitters on ice. The next, larger,
plunks through and for a moment I am a violator

but then I see it opened a bubble cell, a city,
a lesion, a map-the way in cold and luminous.


About this poem
"While I'm not usually bent toward the descriptive, I'm often struck by 'the beneath,' and this visual was arresting enough to make me want to say it. Pleasure in the ear and mouth took over, propelling me to I didn't know where. It's astonishing how through the writing we sometimes see more than we saw."
-Ellen Dore Watson

About Ellen Dore Watson
Ellen Dore Watson is the author of "Dogged Hearts" (Tupelo Press, 2010). She's the director of The Poetry Center at Smith College and lives in Conway, Mass.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Ellen Dore Watson. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate