Andrew Wells
"and the wave,"
its ornothological regret, instinctively
out of tune, knew to distinguish crane,
heron, egret, by all black-leggedness and ancestral warmth. I
think about touch and the love-languages a river cannot send labouring,
for its cry is a cut of the silt and our freckle
of sand appearing beside it is washed with reflections of
canary grass in
what is the colour’s recommended berth;
no marsh grass and there’s no
hollowing with which to hold our bodies steady for longer
in air which held
all turn the short wave’s breadth, cresting low as yesterday’s sun;
whoever heard herons through
whole shades in towns, not me; deliberated sadnesses,
frightened and pink, fewer rabbits oxidise landscapes
I am done misreading, distance’s volume becomes to you the sea-shell I hold out.
its ornothological regret, instinctively
out of tune, knew to distinguish crane,
heron, egret, by all black-leggedness and ancestral warmth. I
think about touch and the love-languages a river cannot send labouring,
for its cry is a cut of the silt and our freckle
of sand appearing beside it is washed with reflections of
canary grass in
what is the colour’s recommended berth;
no marsh grass and there’s no
hollowing with which to hold our bodies steady for longer
in air which held
all turn the short wave’s breadth, cresting low as yesterday’s sun;
whoever heard herons through
whole shades in towns, not me; deliberated sadnesses,
frightened and pink, fewer rabbits oxidise landscapes
I am done misreading, distance’s volume becomes to you the sea-shell I hold out.
--
Andrew Wells is the author of two chapbooks, *SEALED* (Hesterglock, 2020) and *Menacing Sense* (Osmanthus, 2021) and a co-editor of HVTN Press. His work has appeared in SAND Journal, The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, Amberflora, The Scores, Fanzine, and others. He is an MFA candidate at Columbia University.
Andrew Wells is the author of two chapbooks, *SEALED* (Hesterglock, 2020) and *Menacing Sense* (Osmanthus, 2021) and a co-editor of HVTN Press. His work has appeared in SAND Journal, The London Magazine, Poetry Wales, Amberflora, The Scores, Fanzine, and others. He is an MFA candidate at Columbia University.