Nathan Blansett

Nathan Blansett lives in Atlanta. His poems appear in Bennington Review and The Journal. In the fall he will begin an MFA in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.

Abstraction

     He broke
his right
     arm falling
off his bicycle
     so he had
to paint with
     his left:
the rowers lunching
     in their
white attire
     while the river

     *

the sound of it—
     chestnut trees
assuming tan, politesse
     shapes, like a

     *

pleat, in the white sleeve
an arm bent over chair-back...

     *
over the sound
here

the rowers' eyes closing
to hear

     *

as the speaking
     voice speaks too
quick to be taken
     down by one's
pencil, where
     features are penciled more
deeply,

     *

the veined
     aspects of the
leave-shapes
     adjusting
themselves, keeping
     themselves, not
throwing away
     their waste