By Francis Raven
your name was not the name of a tree
but of a bird
for political purposes
as a cudgel
to weigh down on another’s head
said Personally. That is, the backhand
stuck far from the ass
to which it is still attached: nothing typical
from the inside, a finger’s sadness
noted vocation, moved on
to agree his misreading the ending, especially
*Author’s bio: Francis Raven is a Washington, D.C., based poet whose books include the volumes of poetry Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007) and Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox, 2005), as well as the novel Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005). Her poems have been published in Bath House, Chain, Big Bridge, Bird Dog, Mudlark, Caffeine Destiny, and Spindrift, among others, and her critical work can be found in Jacket, Logos, Clamor, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, The Electronic Book Review, The Emergency Almanac, The Morning News, The Brooklyn Rail, 5 Trope, In These Times, The Fulcrum Annual, Rain Taxi and Flak.
