Abide

Letter Hidden in a Letter to Cy Twombly

14 Letter Hidden in a Letter to Cy Twombly I dreamed I was blind but could make a word by curling a strand of hair into letters, one at a time. I prayed the scales would fall. At night, I waited for the river’s sentence to unfold, a tale of snake handlers, the gift of all living tongues. I could write with a tooth, the pencil’s other end, regardless of day, could etch my poem, salt into windowglass. Somewhere the lost boat’s gone mineral, petrified in starlight without a bone to autograph. Just one letter in a strand of code. Given the right oblivion, one hand can remember another, 15 but tonight, the river manages only the bark of leather on stone, clap of footpalms on the bank, its one strand curling a word no one’s slow enough to read. ...