An ageless geography,

          this dizzying Sisyphus that defines

the tremor of knots & water, classification of a mile-hymned

          absence shorn of breath & bismuth. For its excess,

an abdication. A victory sizzling

          the compass glass,

the dinging, a beacon for what’s lost

          & hungered. There’s nothing

here to covet.

          Of what’s been asked

across the oscillating apse,

          which question is the one to strain?

All strung out in axes,

                              asp & aspen

both sense the same direction.

Abi Pollokoff is our Poet in Residence for February.