poem || John M. Bennett

Blow Away

the crusted wind I covered with
eyesight the wind and tooth
lost in the bottom drawer there
was a wind I nailed to a board
in the splintered garage the wind
of numbers fogged in my pocket I
shaved the wind from my trembling
coat dogged the wind with my
tongue gagged and soaked with
wind your glasses retained my
sandwich hollowed with wind and
my undershirt a coughing towel of
wind I cornered in the loot
hidden in my closet the dribbling
wind caressing my face I shoveled
my ashes behind the wind and
twisted around to the front of
my wind a moon sunk in a bucket I
cradled a wind in a darkened street
in St. Louis 1961 the wind was
a throat I strangled and opened
was a sea its lunging mountains
where I was the wind
in 1948 I was a ship a small grey
wall quaking and clanging
in the circular wind