Rodney Terich Leonard
To Tremble With Questions
Of late, I clasp merciless pressure
To ballads & funk, to music—
Upon the arias & Herbie Hancock
Blossom Dearie & 1960s Mahalia
And Sam Cooke:
“Somebody Ease My Troublin’ Mind.”
A text from toothsome times
Isn’t as forever as gripping a hand.
This pandemic of eyeless encounters
Disesteemed the elegant farewell.
To gut the harp from tunes
That dotted our love
Subdues the palate & the hours.
Pinned to circumstance—
Ghost in a pile of pennies
Mime for me some slant of adieu.
My moan is the sound of faith
Upwards of gut.
No nurse or doctor explains the substitute
For a final spoon of honey on the tongue.
—Submitted on 11/26/2020
Rodney Terich Leonard is the author of Sweetgum & Lightning (Four Way Books, 2021). His poems have appeared in BOMB, Four Way Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cortland Review, HIV Here & Now, and other journals. A Callaloo poetry fellow, he holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University and lives in Manhattan.
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