William Allegrezza



process

lines within the lacing
of others--the stops, the pulls,
and then the beginning
again as though no lines exist.
i have been struggling
to write about a god dancing
on a snake’s head,
but the cold has come in,
and my bone is
dead to the moment.



mapping error


1.
suppose the cartographer
speaks in a crowded room
to one person who has been
to where the lines intersect,
and the cartographer
realizes the written error
before it is acknowledged.
suppose the cartographer
speaks to no one and leaves the
obvious error to the future.
suppose there is no error then
and no cartographer.

2.
suppose the cartographer
takes the parchment and
spreads it over wood,
hoping to draw what we
see but without guidance
and by hand.
suppose the ship
veers off course
and the land takes
on new shapes.



watching the change

1.
the purple leaves spread
below us, and we know them
as we know the
white water forming waves as far
as we can see.

2.
i have
danced
on the head
of a four-
headed serpent
with my
robe flowing
and flute
grasped firmly
in hand.

3.
her hand changed
to blue
then hung
on a wall until
it curled and fell among some
discarded scraps of wood.

4.
inside the concrete walls
i found planetary maps for places
i have never been,
but i decided to ignore them all.

5.
we need a direction to chart but
are surrounded with water
on all sides and no stars,
so we move without knowing
and try not to care as
the lines drag behind.




William Allegrezza edits Moria Books and teaches at Indiana University Northwest. He has previously published many poetry books, including In the Port Light, Weaver's Valley, Ladders in July, Fragile Replacements, Collective Instant, Aquinas and the Mississippi (with Garin Cycholl), Covering Over, and Densities, Apparitions; three anthologies, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century, The Alteration of Silence: Recent Chilean Poetry, and La Alteración del Silencio: Poesía Norteamericana Reciente; seven chapbooks, including Sonoluminescence (co-written with Simone Muench) and Filament Sense (Ypolita Press); one critical collection, The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein; and many poetry reviews, articles, and poems.
 
 
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