BHM #5: AN EKPHRASTIC POEM AFTER ARTIST AMY SHERALD

Planes, Rockets and the Spaces In Between (2018) by Amy Sherald

There is a blue sky across the street from the end of the world

a sky without center or capitol

even the birds have deserted the horizon

birds know better

only a rocket dares reach toward the eternal without consideration of heaven.

On the flipside of sky is a clean chalkboard

its calculus of sticky, webbed stars

its expanse too dark to dream in—too cold for love –

yet you thirst for the empty eternity of it

have you done and understood everything of the world

that you must now reach past it on a tower of babbling cotton?

From this field, your tiny splinter

its needle sewing sky to earth—quilting a spinal

column of hot gasses;

Not a gift unless an occupied bullet is a gift…

its microdose gift of aluminum, steel, titanium; its invasive touch and footprints–

What do we pray for now? We are so pretty

belonging somewhere between earth and sky

the sun nipping at our colors of papaya, pineapple, guava

We stand grounded satisfied, knowing

that love stays here with us- the gift of gravity, its covenant and comfort

is ours.

More information on Amy Sherald.