Metempsychosis

/ Issue 14.3 /

You would play upon me. You
would seem to know my stops.
………………………….[III.ii.367]

These brute hands meant to swing the entire ape
………………………………………………..from limb to limb
…………..now curled within the formal weave
………………………………………………..of an impromptu
……………………….jungle-gym (on & between the rungs
………………………………………………..where at intervals
……………………………………of oddest fingering perpend
………………………………………………..kumquats of every shade)

are managing a man’s recomposition: plink
………………………………………………..plunk plunkety-
…………..plunking down in hesitant start-of-the-rain-
………………………………………………..storm choliambs
……………………….a premonition (different from
………………………………………………..the fact of black
……………………………………cat across your nightmare or
………………………………………………..a lurch in the womb)

that I create the soul I will contain: so move
………………………………………………..the muscles: so
…………..the planchette moves beneath a touch
………………………………………………..too commonplace
……………………….to teach (& so I am made to move
………………………………………………..all the days of the year
……………………………………by sway of bodies
………………………………………………..beyond my reach)

Henry Walters

Henry Walters

Henry Walters is the author of two books of poetry: Field Guide A Tempo, a finalist for the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and The Nature Thief, a finalist for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, to be published in the fall of 2022 by The Waywiser Press. He is also the translator from Italian of Enrico Testa's Ablativo, winner of the 2013 Premio Viareggio. His work appears in periodicals such as The Threepenny Review, Orion, Literary Imagination, The Yale Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and New Letters. He lives in New Hampshire with his young family, a hawk, and a hive of bees.
Henry Walters

Also by Henry Walters (see all)

Author: Henry Walters

Henry Walters is the author of two books of poetry: Field Guide A Tempo, a finalist for the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and The Nature Thief, a finalist for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, to be published in the fall of 2022 by The Waywiser Press. He is also the translator from Italian of Enrico Testa's Ablativo, winner of the 2013 Premio Viareggio. His work appears in periodicals such as The Threepenny Review, Orion, Literary Imagination, The Yale Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and New Letters. He lives in New Hampshire with his young family, a hawk, and a hive of bees.