by Anthony Frame
Is it time yet to deconstruct the destructive?
The white foam flushing over ships,
over the lost bodies blackening the sea.
The hottest fire and the forgotten smoke.
By birth. Flailing, broken open stones,
dominion over every creeping thing.
When all we have left is skin and power.
Where there’s power, there’s money.
Where there’s faith, redemption? Ashes mark
our foreheads that are otherwise unmarked.
White without sight, vision, held in solution.
The whites of their eyes and teeth. Don’t think, just do.
Right. To be invisible and indivisible.
White as grammar, as history. That won’t let up,
won’t let go. All I want is to let go. To learn.
Is there nothing as strong as skin? All I know
and nothing is so soft, so frail, water within
and so afraid it will find a way out.
Anthony Frame is an exterminator from Toledo, Ohio, where he lives with his wife. He is the author of A Generation of Insomniacs (Main Street Rag, 2015) and of four chapbooks, including To Gain the Day (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2015) and Where Wind Meets Wing (forthcoming from Sibling Rivalry Press). He is the editor/publisher of Glass Poetry Press, which publishes the Glass Chapbook Series and Glass: A Journal of Poetry. His poetry has appeared in Third Coast, Harpur Palate, Boxcar Poetry Review, Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal and Verse Daily, among others. He has twice been awarded Individual Excellence Grants from the Ohio Arts Council.