Joshua Hussey

MYRTLE-ALLEY

1.

we map them understanding

that they were immense,

covered with fruits and flowers,

a single iris into an autoclave

2.

perhaps of its trees, their green platform,

of a grassy lawn; feel that there—

were immense, covered with shrill cries

perched, one after an other

3.

it was also the time of them,

from them was borne upon the same,

as in a balanced whole, of which

was borne upon the brows of women—

now were immense, covered all trace:

the idea of perfection

which was borne

upon the unwooded parts

4.

that it existed for some

was ever more that we were

scattered—

                        all manner of birds,

in places where the trees held,

continued, still embedded

among the splash of the rest||

                        the shrill and the shrike

5.

in those disquiets, in that other time,

the sky the shore of them again,

against as we crossed in a scattered sequence

without knowledge, directed it on our way

6.

stumbling to the dovecote,

the sky was grey;

they passed in a scattered

all trace

we map them with a wood,

that it existed for a world



Joshua Hussey is a doctoral student in English at the University of Georgia and is working on a long project on itineraries, the itinerant and Susan Howe. He has published work in Verse (review) and poetry in the Eugene, Oregon based Denali Literary Magazine. He lives in Athens, Georgia.