Sean Singer

Weldon Irvine

(1943-2002)

Please forgive the long silence.
In my gut, which is the blue flame
Of the stovetop, the broken lance
Of fear quakes my liver and my name
Means not celebration and critique
But concealment (what the Dogon
Call obeah). And so I take
Myself into myself, that long
Ribbon folded inside the cowrie
Shell. I am a massive animal.
The torsion in the muscles of my
Neck serve up the image of a mal-
Contented demon, and I suck my own grave
Through my sinuous mantle groove.
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Sean Singer’s first book Discography won the 2001 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, selected by W.S. Merwin, and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. He has also published two chapbooks, Passport and Keep Right On Playing Through the Mirror Over the Water, both with Beard of Bees Press and is the recipient of a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in New York City.