Peter Grandbois

With each step I kill

 
Like a word spoken that can’t be taken back

So I move toward stillness as hours break
into swallows

Into a sort of meaning
I follow

A keening song of stone

A tiny gleaming beacon

And then I am singing
Of bone and stream

and all my old wind-blown
faces rise

while I fly deep into dirt
waking

free of this tangled
earth

this body on loan

Peter Grandbois is the author of thirteen books, the most recent of which is the Snyder prize-winning, Last Night I Aged a Hundred Years (Ashland Poetry Press 2021). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in over one hundred journals. His plays have been nominated for several New York Innovative Theatre Awards and have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard magazine and teaches at Denison University in Ohio. You can find him at www.petergrandbois.com.