Polite Conversation
- Polite Conversation
We follow a coast to its jaw,there make notion of an islandto give part to the tide,its complicated glassconsuming ankles, thenthe tipped pitch of a pelican.
Our own throats returnfrom an anthology of rock,how dramatic the cliff,how diminishedshirked water,the balloon having meant to,the horizon graying to zone.
I’ve lost entire weeks of sea-birdsand ships to its void:the spun mouth of the vacuum,cataract of stippled glass—the waves reversing as I walk,and the brief intentionsof the whitecaps, dashed. [End Page 10]
Alec Hershman lives in St. Louis where he teaches at The Stevens Institute of Business and Arts. He has received awards from the Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center for the Arts, The Jentel Foundation, Ananda College and the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art, and Natural Design. His work appears in recent and forthcoming issues of Switchback, Yemassee, Colorado Review, The Laurel Review, The Pinch, burntdistrict, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Cerise Press, Thrush and elsewhere.
