ANTHONY CIRILO
Awe
I confess, I touched myself
in clear view of God. I knelt
in the tall grass. I knelt
beneath a bramble of stars
in the strange weather
of the universe and felt the musk
grazed field pressing itself
to my mouth like a wound. My mouth
to the dirt. My kingdom. What does
it matter if nothing here is real?
The wind still tosses the laughing
sunflowers. The loons will rise off
the rippling lake like an idea.
In the crushed yellow
of this dream, I am busy
inventing shame.
Forgive me. How nothing can lift
its bright stain.
171 The Paris-American
I confess, I touched myself
in clear view of God. I knelt
in the tall grass. I knelt
beneath a bramble of stars
in the strange weather
of the universe and felt the musk
grazed field pressing itself
to my mouth like a wound. My mouth
to the dirt. My kingdom. What does
it matter if nothing here is real?
The wind still tosses the laughing
sunflowers. The loons will rise off
the rippling lake like an idea.
In the crushed yellow
of this dream, I am busy
inventing shame.
Forgive me. How nothing can lift
its bright stain.
171 The Paris-American
Anthony Cirilo is an MFA candidate at Rutgers-Newark where he teaches composition. His poems and reviews have appeared in The Volta, The Oxford Review, and Montclair State University's Creative Research Center. Currently, he is co-directing the documentary Poetry of Witness, including original interviews with acclaimed poets from around the world.
