paper sheets of sheets
robes of hoods winking
clouds stirring storm
coming home to front
door closing back to back
to roost pigeons whitened
doves among white
blossoms trees limbs
swaying eyes gleaming
teeth bones remaining
dangling fleshless white
bodies underneath after all
#7 and #31 from White Papers, by Martha Collins c 2012. All rights are controlled by The University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Martha Collins is a poet, translator, the editor-at-large for Field Magazine, and an editor at Oberlin College Press. She is the author of the poetry volumes, Day Unto Day (Milkweed, 2014), White Papers (Pitt Poetry Series, 2012), Blue Front (Graywolf, 2006), Some Things Words Can Do (Sheep Meadow, 1998), A History of a Small Life on a Windy Planet (University of Georgia, 1993), The Arrangement of Space (Gibbs Smith, 1991) and The Catastrophe of Rainbows (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1985). Her volume Admit One: An American Scrapbook is forthcoming in 2016.
