- Some Measure of Our Aftermath
The wetland reeds are under reeds we pass across a bridgeWhere people sleep unboarded boats against abutments ridge
These jetties strike my addled sense and edging veins my faceThese jetties miles of menace low these clutches gear and race
The wheel we hold the rack in line the trees we find all burnThe evening shift is over now the morning right in turn
We count the threads but not when if they’re split they rub our skinAnd how could we be home if when we haven’t slipped slept in
Are we far now from Montrose us are we now far from whereWe pick the burning cinders up and scatter them the air [End Page 224]
Samuel Amadon is the author of Like a Sea and The Hartford Book. His poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, The Nation, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, Boston Review, and elsewhere. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of South Carolina, and edits the journal Oversound with Liz Countryman.