Even the dust is dazzling: glinting grit,
biotite mica’s black fire in the dirt,
glass pulverized underfoot. The grandiose
wreckage goes on forever. Everything
recrystallizes over time; chert turns
to flint, shale turns to slate, acanthus leaves
blanch, petrify; a stagnant pond where carp
curving in listless ogees will compress
to banded malachite. Ephemera
deliver disquisitions on the law
of similarity: for porphyry,
red poppies, and for lapis lazuli
wild gentian; gem-eyed lizards fix themselves
like particolored pins in cloisonné
to the remaindered walls. In all of this
great dissertation it’s the shift in form
that gives things value. People like to say
stay present, but that’s clearly not a thing
even out here. Things crumble, and break down,
and are reconstituted. Nothing wrong
with it—right? They say not to let your damage
define you, but I think that’s a mistake.
—
Amy Glynn is a poet and essayist whose work appears widely in journals and anthologies including The Best American Poetry (2010, 2012, 2024). She is the author of two full-length poetry collections: A Modern Herbal (Measure Press, 2013) and Romance Language (Able Muse, 2024). She has won the Troubadour Prize, the SPUR Award of the Academy of Western Writers, and Poetry Northwest’s Carolyn Kizer Award, among other honors.
