What a lovely word, chassis: it sounds like the inspiration
for white and yellow flowers everywhere, or the fragrance
for women who can pull their weight from a hanging rope. It started French,
then English made it support the weight of cars, and the queue of words waiting for meaning must be a mess, as the dictionary
could be full of mistakes: war could’ve easily been bean –
The Bean of Attrition –
The Cold Bean –
“Do you realize how many lives were lost in that bean?”
If I could, I’d plant every bean there ever was, dig my fingers into the flow of earth, and push
until my elbows sink, push until the spectators lose interest, and drift,
push until I forget how it started, push until I realize I’m being pulled,
until the soot is breath, and the textbooks of men are breath, and the history of words reaches its fingerless, green hand through the dirt, straight for the sun.
-- Bryan C. Murray, poet, graduate of Virginia Tech’s MFA program, 2010 winner of the Emily Morrison Prize for Poetry, born and raised in the Bronx, New York, has recently published with GUD, The Northville Review, The Legendary and Sou’wester. Bryan also recently started a blog.