Thicket

We come gnawed by need on hands and knees.

As a creature (nosing) grubble-seeks a spring.

As bendy-spined as bandy snakes through saltshrub yaupon needle-brake.

For darkling green;

for thorn-surround.

This absorbing

quaggy

crample-ground.

Of briar-canes (intervolved with kudzu-mesh) and mold.

Of these convoluted vines we grasp to suck.

To taste the pith —

the lumen the cell-sap pulse.

To try to know

some (soursharp) something about something.

Lumen is as lumen does.

‘A little room for turmoil to grow lucid in.’

In here where Clary set her cart-tongue down (and dug, and brailled).

In here where Tynan breathed.

We grasp to suck to taste what light.

Let loose the bale that bows us down.

— Bow down.

Notes:

This is the first published version of the poem, as it appeared in Poetry magazine in 2013. The poem has since been significantly revised; the revised definitive version is published in Atsuro Riley's collection Heard-Hoard (2021).

Source: Poetry (September 2013)