Every Ravening Thing

Poems

Marsha de la O

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780822986683
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Author of two previous collections of poetry: BLACK HOPE (1997) and ANTIDOTE FOR NIGHT (2015). de la O is also the publisher of the journal ASKEW.

Keats at Fourteen
She dozes, her nails fretted against the linen's border,
a hectic rose flaming each cheek. Her lips move, no words.
The boy is guardian spirit, no one but he enters this sickroom
where his mother fades, home finally after six years—failures,
disgrace. Scarlet daughter, neighbors hiss, slave to appetite,
but John is single-minded—she will live. No one but he gives her
the tincture of mercury—one tenth of a grain daily, dabs the sweat
of her fevers away, a basket of withered poppies at his feet. He pierces
each capsule with a needle, drops it in a small glazed crock to warm
near the stove, sweat out the opium. Then he'll add wine, saffron,
nutmeg. It takes time, the hour darkens. He cups his hand
to light the votive. She moans a furred voice from webbed lungs,
a cup of black blood brimming, the pilgrim is fleeing the City,
he leans in closer, the City of Destruction, takes her clammy hand,
that place also where he was born, so close now he's breathing her,
"Johnny," she cries, "lift me up, Johnny, your father is here in the room.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Interrogation
• Poem of the first kiss
• Keats at Fourteen
• Darkfall
• No, She Didn’t Think the Road Was Dangerous
• To Stand in a Circle
• Two for a Penny
• Gray Fox
• Lament
• Poem beginning in loneliness
• My Vulture, My Companion
• For the Poet Enheduanna of Uruk
• La Vida
• For a Young Woman Dead at Twenty
• Vinegar of Roses
• In the middle of the story
• Ode to Apples
• Speaking to my Father on War
• Night Traveling
• I Still Say Your Name
• Running Fire
• The Work of Their Hands
• Ode to the Verb To Be
• Self Portrait as Daphne
• The Good Neighbor
• In Those Months Gold Leaf Drifted onto His Skin
• The Understory
• Poem for the parched
• Summer
• A Natural History of Light
• To Get This Far
• Star Pine
• The Essence of Water
• Rio Grande
• Bone Box
• Mad Meg
• Northern Lights and Sound
• Mapping Hallucinations
• Space-time Tsunami
• The Country That Doesn’t Exist
• Poem on a female goldfinch
• A Grove of Trees
• Rough Innocence
• Portion
• To the Grandmothers
• Acknowledgments