This poem is also finally published! It showed up in Sigma Tau Delta's The Rectangle, and I had the opportunity to read this last week at their international convention.
This is probably my favorite poem that I've written.When I First Sit Down in Dr. Conover's American History ClassCarvings in a desk
Sink into the wood -- pictures of
Small stick men, the words
"Burn in hell" etched below.
Maybe the same kid
Came back each day, scratched
Out another image,
To keep proving he existed,
Just like the soldier
Who scrawled "Kilroy was here"
On a ship hull, sparking
Others to carve and recarve
The phrase on walls in German
Cities, into trees
On the Japanese shore
To prove, prove
There is no line
Where carving ends
And the carver
Begins. Once I saw etches
In black desert varnish
Along the edge of mountains.
I had a rope tied
Around my waste to keep
From falling. I saw
The carving of a pregnant
Goat, a large one with
A smaller one inside
Its stomach. I imagined
A nervous boy, thousands of years ago,
Sitting on the edge of the cliff
With a flint knife in one hand,
Carving pictures into the stone wall.
Once I looked around, carefully, before
Tracing my own initials in wet cement.
Years later, they're still visible.
