The following is a poem from Pieces of Air in the Epic by Brenda Hillman, to be published in October by Wesleyan University Press.
Street Corner
There was an angle
where I went for
centuries not as a
self or feature but
exhaled as a knowing
brick tradesman engineered for
blunt or close recall;
soundly there, meanings grew
past a second terror
finding their way as
evenings, hearing the peppermint
noise of sparrows landing
like spare dreams of
citizens where abstraction and
the real could merge.
We had crossed the
red forest; we had
recognized a weird lodge.
We could have said
song outlasts poetry, words
are breath bricks to
support the guardless singing
project. We could have
meant song outlasts poetry.
—"Street Corner" from Pieces of Air in the Epic by Brenda Hillman. Copyright (c) 2005 by Brenda Hillman. Reprinted with permission of Wesleyan University Press.