HISTORIAN

She can repair things
with a little twist
of wire. Even sentences.
She’s “writing it all up,”
she says and none
of the imagery’s from nature.

Came over to say she’s
seen the key will be to
insert random blank
pages in the chronology, not
too early, where the mind
would retune what it was

used to, our settings revert—
but later! And increasingly!
The whole last third should be
blank! Back cover transparent!
She’s dizzy, pupils
huge, can’t think

about food. Too young
to know that we do
disappear. I will miss her
if she succeeds in this thing.
Which she might.
She’s that talented.

 

Photo by Ian Keefe on Unsplash

Written by 

Nancy White is the author of three poetry collections: Sun, Moon, Salt (winner of the Washington Prize), Detour, and Ask Again Later. Her poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Review, FIELD, New England Review, Ploughshares, Rhino, and many others. She serves as editor-in-chief at The Word Works in Washington, D. C. and teaches at SUNY Adirondack in upstate NY.

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