ISSUE 47
May 2010

Rachel Dacus

 

Rachel Dacus�s poetry collections are Femme au chapeau (WordTech, 2005) and Earth Lessons (Bellowing Ark Press, 1998) as well as the chapbook Another Circle of Delight. Her work appears in the anthologies Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English (Wesleyan, 2000) and Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer�s Disease (Kent State, 2009).

Every Morning I Try    

to pronounce a divine name perfectly, knowing
I can't really say its swallow-swing

or enunciate the syllables a mockingbird
loops in medleys—can't whisper vowels

of an airplane's rhyming trail.
Names like that must be repeated
as a flower lets pollen fly. I should mimic
the closed bud's wise pause.

My human mouth can hardly shape
the million-zinnia alpha letter, let alone
the final letter's plosive dazzle—
but I can hum the consonants
of this green button day—

and add several bandaged overtones
to the morning-setting moon.
I can echo two doves speaking
to my dog, who rolls and rolls
on the name's final Ah.
Since I cannot make that pure sound,

I will get down alongside on the grass and roll
then give the next being I meet
a courteous consonant
dangling an ocean vowel.




 

 

Rachel Dacus: Poetry
Copyright ©2010 The Cortland Review Issue 47The Cortland Review