poem || Jeff Harrison

 
Fugitive Grime
 
gratefully give the body,
you on the streets,
tongues in the middle
of patience,
up to your neck
in unbroken sequence,
come back
to a more intimate setting,
intimate pauper silence
that dug under
spousal vindications

the first brains that
provoke fishermen
serves the public preoccupation,
take it to make it
notes concentrated on business
hear me on formal introduction -
I could not,
were she alive,
bear this grace
ripening without me!

gratefulness remains
to ask much of its grace,
ask if an implausible blustering
title warrants powerless feelings,
History's now my errand,
spirit was alone
to air grievances
no one could replace assent
snares hurried
to ocean-blued shipments