Cento from Five Points Vol. 18 No. 2

What is devotion?

Me here. You there.
The crockpot squatting

between us, the unspoken building up
in the rooms. There was

infinite suffering.
It had three minutes each
to describe itself

toeing into the light.
Many wept. I settled

for detachment,
leave roses at your feet;

loam and that Alabama clay, that hymn
that one can taste and not become

vigilant in retreat. Why think
of any of this now

you are so often silent,
lured from a cover of seafoam

like half-dressed game:
a single country dove

swearing it
is hope

[Elizabeth Spires, Elizabeth Spires, Adam Vines, Jeffrey Harrison, Kate Daniels, Kate Daniels, Adam Vines, Kate Daniels, Elizabeth Spires, Adam Vines, Gregory Frazer, Chelsea Rathburn, Elizabeth Spires, R. T. Smith, Gregory Frazer, R.T. Smith, Adam Vines, R. T. Smith, Gregory Frazer]

This is a part of a series of centos in tribute to lit mags I have to give away for lack of space. I wanted to imagine these poets in a room (though not limited to a stanza) and put the poems in each issue in dialogue with one another as a way to save what touched me. Formally, for the most part, I have kept the poets’ original line breaks.

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