Hush
Laura M. Kaminski
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2015 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Tom Howard, Poetry
for Mike Dockins, after Dario Robleto's conceptual art sculpture "Lunge For Love As If It Were Air" in his 2012 exhibition "The Prelives of the Blues" at the New Orleans Museum of Art—labeled "stretched audiotape of two now-deceased lovers' recordings of each other's heartbeats"
They recorded each other's
beating hearts—rewind, imagine
for a moment, each one's hand
holding the small voice-recorder
to the surface of the other's
naked chest, the careful capture
of the rhythmic flutter trapped
within the skin-draped arc-
bars of the ribcage.
Leases finished on
flesh accommodations, they
moved out, left only
recorded lengths of audiotape
now stretched and shaped into two
feathers placed together
in a large glass mason jar.
Here our poem must enter
reverently, remove its shoes.
No need to speak further—
listen. Let your own heart
be God's ear.
"Hush" was initially written as part of the Tupelo Press 30/30 project for a fellow 30/30 teammate, and is included in the collection last penny the sun (Balkan Press, 2014).
