The Old Worlds
- The Old Worlds
Vultures offer their requiem at first light.They live by memory, by rote.
Something dies or lives.And a simulacrum of my breath this morning
is a cloud. I walk to be away.Original humans whispered
their passwords to the liminal, spoke to moonsouls, to oracles of bones.
I see a raccoon belly up with the primitivemusic of raw innards. The grass
is yellow-brown beside my fence.The old world tells a story to the beautiful
wings of retreating carrion birds,instructions written into the eye and mind.
The world must be coming to an end. The worldmust know this constitutes desire. [End Page 153]
Doug Ramspeck is the author of five poetry collections. His most recent book, Original Bodies, was selected for the Michael Waters Poetry Prize and is forthcoming by Southern Indiana Review Press. Individual poems have appeared in journals that include the Kenyon Review, Slate, the Southern Review, the Georgia Review, and Agni.
