how it works
- how it works
is that it works even when you do not believe in it
even when you believe that whether you believe
determines whether it works you are a child in the dark
whispering into your fingers trying not to hear
the monsters affirmed each time you name them
that is faith & its conundrum— you don’t believe in it
but look, there it stands on the page enacting its own antecedent
& when you read these lines aloud your breath passes across
your vocal cords & listen this it that does not exist
is a hummingbird disturbing the air mixing meaning with sound
perhaps you are right & someone has photoshopped
the ice caps calving great shelves into a warming ocean [End Page 130]
& the new storms are not as bad as they seem
you are a child in the dark whispering into your fingers
then putting them over your eyes so you will not be seen [End Page 131]
rebecca foust has published five books of poetry, most recently Paradise Drive, reviewed in venues including the Times Literary Supplement. Her poems, essays, short stories, and book reviews appear widely. Recognitions include the 2015 James Hearst Poetry Prize, the American Literary Review Prize for Fiction, fellowships from MacDowell, Sewanee, and the Frost Place, and recent appointment as Marin County Poet Laureate.
