From the book:

Too pretty

I once dated

a willow tree

in spite of the fact

that he was

so much older.

He knew things that

only the two of us could,

and he hummed silence

while I halfspoke

in pale, quivering lips,

because that is

the language of  

silvery leaves

and quiet children.

I was at that age of

thoughts that hung

downward  

like fingernails, like

just-slipped-off

rubber boots, like

pond-edge reflections—

And so we stayed

for hours below the un-

syllabated sky.

I could not bring

myself to open its

voice, divide up its

endless blue.

It was too pretty.

I could not hyphen-

ate my throat sounds

into any words

I'd learned yet, but

I could let him hum.

Let him hum that

silence into song,

into sky,

like broken language,

like broken children

in a silvery, soft

Refrain.

Surfaces, Edges and Openings

is a 44 page hand-stitched chapbook - $10.00

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Home Books Released Lerner White Zazulyer Formento nur alima Moore Hulsman Lundy Wilcox-Meyer Czarnecki Willitts Bockes Coffman Lewandowski Van Wie Marshall Charles Route 20 Anthology Zimmerman Lee Bennett Ferrigno

Surfaces, Edges and Openings

[we all have them]

Joanne Van Wie