On the third Wednesday in ordinary time

Half a woman, really, off a balcony

in the early December of another hemisphere.

Danced or frozen

amid a well-placed healthy skepticism:

The letter “P”

Where birds listen intently, [how dry it is].

Where spines, hair, lead, sand

and shellac–l’American rails,

a garden gate, stamps amid a plain

triganomally. That place where…

we, banished to be certain–but

bound to be people

again soon.

–after the mixed media work “Garden Gate” by Kyle Johnson

Barbara Cully is the author of two poetry collections from Penguin Books: Desire Reclining (2003) and The New Intimacy (1997) and two collections from Kore Press: Shoreline Series (1997) and That Place Where (2011). A new collection, Under the Hours is forthcoming from JackLeg Press in May 2012 and Cully Selected Poems forthcoming in May 2013.

*Photo courtesy of withrow.