Depth of the Throat
A Poem

And now that winter brings her guns to bear you think you need to scream retreat. There’s no one close enough to hear you.
Broiled words open passages and learn to make passports from scratch. Delivered.
Posed in flight. Made into the formula of defeat, then put into play over and over.
The printing of diatribes, big money, muscular economy, the strong worship of the jugular. The carotid (I used to think this was instead of caryatids, Modigliani’s fetish) poised to support the whole column, even in falseness.
A jump, collide with fate and faith, the challenge of erecting something that lasts. Even if it only starts somewhere in the throat.
J.D. Harms 2020





