Apparitions
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Apparitions
Nibbling on fecund cowshit, these flies the color of ground ginger belong to an abundant species.
In their parlor of clay the blood-colored worms wind themselves like clocks.
But what is that ticking away in the hydrangeas, brief shadow flick-flickering between leaves?
The wren, stone-born, winging a frantic tattoo as it spins about itself intricate leafshade.
The day a braid of shadow facts dwindling toward midnight, when—heart hammering its own
wrenflap fandango—you walk through the dark of the dark in a pool of pale lamplight
humming the overture to Macbeth
and cower away from your own kind: a brace of whisperboys coming, cowled, against you. [End Page 289]
Eamon Grennan’s most recent poetry collections are Matter of Fact and Out of Sight: New and Selected Poems. A Dubliner, he taught for many years in the English department of Vassar College, and currently teaches in the graduate writing program of Columbia University.
