The First Day                                                                          —Dan Beachy-Quick


every form forms a distance
spun yarn spun gold spun a name

no one told me about god’s foot
on the treadle his fool’s loom

heart hurts hart the least dart
does dare to close the gap

like this word this is a soul
and also this word this is not

exactly the same one of them is
a little lame and limps a little

syntax and star what’s near goes
solar goes asleep goes deer in loam


Auricle

                  —for Sasha Steensen


No lamb I know asks
     the question—
but I only know one lamb.
Though the coal burns
     bright orange
behind the dark iron
slats, no tiger I know
     asks—
but I don’t know any tigers.
When the child misspells
     good as god
I correct her. You need
another o. Oh, she says,
     okay. A dog
with no legs and no tail
sleeps on her throat
     at night.
A lamb lies down
under the yellow stars
      printed
on her sheet. She never
asks either. Silent as her
     pet lamb. Okay?
Silent as her tiger that can’t
bother to exist—


Dan Beachy-Quick

Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet and essayist, author most recently of a collection of meditations, fragments, and poems, Of Silence & Song (Milkweed Editions, 2017). A Guggenheim Fellow, Monfort Professor, and Lannan residency recipient, he teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Colorado State University, where he is a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019