THE DOG OF THE THROAT
Dear throat:
Given every living thing,
given the farmer’s
and butcher’s slaughter
—in you are the hog’s hearts,
the stalks, and the milk,
and the grain of the wind,
the grain heard, the flock herded,
the swallow, the holler—
what, throat, at your age,
given every sing
—and you cough and collapse
and hack clear a way
back through for so little
a cry as the flies make—
whose moan’s still born?
Mark Bilbrey drags around degrees from the University of
Tennessee-Chattanooga, The University of Iowa, and The University of
Georgia. He recently taught Composition, American Poetry, Poetry
Writing, and Bible as Literature at the University of
Wisconsin-Parkside, but presently works for the Admissions office at
Claremont McKenna College. Poems from the manuscript he's currently finishing have been published in Versal, ACTION YES, 42 Opus, LIT, Ghost House, and Straylight. He lives in Claremont, California.