The Crisp Day Closing on My Hand: The Poetry of M. Travis Lane

You Want Your Truths Told of You

You Want Your Truths Told of You You want your truths told of you— those wavery lines! Each pencil mark’s a fiddlehead unfolding to an island of wild fern, of alders, grass, of willow trees, of sharp dams in the silty sand where a barefoot girl stands to watch a cattle barge rock, like a cradle in the wind. Shecan not tell them where she stands, her nude toes turning blue as clams in the murky water where it chafes the green facts into islands— shoals, reefs, whirlpools, naked trees scoured by the ice. Her plain nouns bell their inner folds like a coiled spring uncoiling or like eggs that tremble in her hand and beat their shells with razor bills and spread out wings. Their shadows cast on the millstream float on spinning water for all time, never entirely truthful. 34 / The Crisp Day Closing on My Hand ...