spring 2020
Office of the Holy Face Kelly Hoffer There are species of abandonment
spectral fringe
wave me in
to the vacancy pending
scene of
buoys untethered
to find one and rustling
floating
an other
over depth
huddled on the ocean field
a school of
gathering
pretty luck
I want a carcass to sing
to me in golden-hour light made a song tunnel
hot error
glutted shot-tied fever pitch
the body revives
I am tired
of my mother’s ghost halving aloft, the blade of her
of precious boys a limpid shiver primed
a plow tilling its own ash
hers a haunting having nowhere
I need
to wander to that good relic
a portrait possessed by a flickering an exercise to think saw a seedpod opening
tallow-light her body, dead and alive
its papery mouth to reveal black teeth
and thought of fall falling, a horizon
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