The Brooklyn Rail

APRIL 2022

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APRIL 2022 Issue
Critics Page

Gap and Erasure


The lumbering bumblebee is out

Buttering up its bronze thighs

With pollen’d orbs of echinacea.

It’s a period piece, a

Gap in the goldenrod, dud

Erasure against vetch-trifle’d embankments,

Hap what hap might. Toot

A coup I got ‘promptitude

O’ the toong’ and I

‘Misewell’ make something of it.

Madder ‘n a mad hen

Is how I been lately—

One summery day a redhead

Hopped off a blue bicycle,

Order’d a scoop of mocha-

Chip. Her razor smile. Period.

Contributor

John Latta

John Latta is the author of Rubbing Torsos (Ithaca House, 1979) and Breeze (U. of Notre Dame Press, 2003). Between 2006 and 2015 he regularly put together notes and quotes for a blog called Isola di Rifiuti. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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The Brooklyn Rail

APRIL 2022

All Issues