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  • What heavenward gesture . . .
  • Sally Keith (bio)

What heavenward gesture, what terror, what arms, what netNot make for catching, what arrowed, what ushered, what shield,

The sun a red stripe at dawn and dusk, the buoyancy, the stopper.What kind of afternoon was it? Self-portrait in the scoop neck T-shirt,

Where was the moon? Where did the mountains behind it drop?Why did the Greeks want to worship the lightning so, building

Urns in emptied fields? Earth, wind, water, or fire, which oneIs the one that describes you best? Does it matter? Was it noisy

At all? Was there sometimes even a jet? What book? WhatWoman going into and out of the house, sitting still on the porch?

What disappears when the angle of the sun is naught? WhenIt hits dead straight? What floating plane of invisibility punched

By points? Must you insist on symbols? Must you have believedIt leaked some proof? What did you think the journey would make,

Did you think action lurked in the shadowed place? Reverence,Where? Need, how? What body made of density lives like this? [End Page 170]

Sally Keith

Sally Keith is the author of The Fact of the Matter (Milkweed Editions, 2012) and two previous collections of poetry, Design (Center for Literary Publishing, 2000) and Dwelling Song (University of Georgia Press, 2004). She is a member of the M.F.A. Faculty at George Mason University and lives in Washington, D.C.

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