found sonnet
Oct 20th, 2007 by Whitney
“Found Sonnet”
(excerpts taken from Lia Purpura’s On Looking,
the essay entitled “Glaciology”)
During the thaw we were given to see
whole bodies of bone inclined toward each
other; snow melted into vertebrae,
pocked with dirt, and unlikely in their strength.
Bones, stacked, bent, in the attitude of prayer,
the edges honed, precarious, forms arced
over the sewer. White places layer
in smears that others were trained to read.
What remained were not yet remains. It was
clear how the warmth would eat everything
down. Wind blew the shapes, knife-edged, hunched, to ease
a pain, and pack the snow hard. Frayed covering
with the elbows poking through layered land.
A thing that remained to be found and told.
