By Elizabeth Savage
Talk that Roman talk
When in October
scatter candy corn
no backward look
When roads divide
travel light
When a cabin
dream of plumbing
When trying to talk
with a man
ghosts in the machine
age, see innocence
When dusting
Garfield’s chair
sympathize — what goes
around
spins around the dynamo
spinning
from a virgin’s eye
Once elected Pope
orbit your shoes
then take a stand
When washing, plumbing
again
When indoors, the infinite
out
When a doorjamb
the mind’s hinge
squeaking on its year, well
seasoned
each season sweetened
bright with leaves
of reason
each reason leading
to autumn
chattering away its Latin
Elizabeth Savage is author of Jane & Paige or Sister Goose (2011), Grammar (2012), and Idylliad (2015), all from Furniture Press Books. The current issue of Verse features her dossier-chapbook of twenty-six poems, titled Woman Looking at a Vase of Flowers. Her poetry reviews appear in Jacket2 and in Kestrel: A Journal of Literature & Art, for which she serves as poetry editor.
