INVENTORY
Joseph Fasano
This is what we have.
The hawk calling in the dark forest.
The hands of our lovers,
resting on our chests as we sleep.
And more.
The spring wind
waking us again
like all the bridles of childhood
dragged across our bodies,
still warm from the wild things that were broken in them.
The brokenness
is what we have.
That, too.
At the edge
of the road,
the doe curls in sawgrass
where the wreckage left her.
No one is alone on this wild earth.
Let sorrow come.
Let the rain fall
on the cold doe in the open
where she crumbles in the coming rush
of trouble.
Let the heart
do
what it must do, ruined
as the wintered lips of the broken
doe,
but opening,
sniffing the pistol.
Joseph Fasano is a poet, novelist, and songwriter. His novels include The Swallows of Lunetto (forthcoming from Maudlin House, 2022) and The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing (Platypus Press, 2020), which was named one of the "20 Best Small Press Books of 2020." His books of poetry include The Crossing (2018), Vincent (2015), Inheritance (2014), and Fugue for Other Hands (2013). His honors include The Cider Press Review Book Award, the Rattle Poetry Prize,, inclusion in the Forward Book of Poetry, and a nomination for the Poets' Prize, "awarded annually for the best book of verse published by a living American poet two years prior to the award year." His writing has been translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Spanish, Chinese, Swedish, and other languages. He serves on the Editorial Board of Alice James Books and as the Founder and Curator of the Poem for You Series. He is currently writing a "living poem" for his son and posting it on Twitter at @stars_poem.