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2015-04-16-Symptoms-Tallmadge.jpg

Symptoms of Homesickness by Gabriella R. Talmadge

April 16, 2015

Constant state of what.     Word for word for what.

what wounded.                   Thirst of what, tending the fires of what.

what of unknown origin.               what a chronic condition.

what this foreign body.                 what slipping like steam

from a carcass on I-40.                   what fugitive.

what lost. what                     a ran horse emptied.

Inhabiting this land                         of what.

Living through this what,            snow blindness.

This hail, my teeth, it grows in me         this snow,

this all-inclusive what.                 This whoosh of whoa

goes past me, driving and what              holds me

by the throat.                         Chandelier of lightning, lamp

of what around the moon.             Tide by tide, I tow each blank

hemisphere, I lope.              On the highway signs say

Lay Down Your what                       and be Saved,

say Feed Your Strangers,               say Hang In There, Baby.

Fast and metal, this blind                          bomb, I run.

Little transient                       what, I go. Caught

in the deep of the               dark, my what

a thousand years    or more—

kingdom of what,                             place of dazzling

zoologies of what,   herds of what, flocks of what,

stumbling drunk   under the heaven of what.

Cathedral hush                       and hunting, mapping

and splintering, digging  and burying,

drawn and dawning                      on me, a cleft.

what a mirror                                      and mile marker, portrait gallery

of having left.


Gabriella R. Tallmadge's poetry has received a Transitional Artist Residency Award from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and was chosen by Dorianne Laux for inclusion in the 2014 edition of Best New Poets. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Indiana Review, Sycamore Review, Passages North, Crazyhorse, The Journal and others. You can find her online at www.grtallmadge.com.

Photos by Christian Sorensen Hansen, West Coast based ocular illusionist. See more at http://christiansorensenhansen.com/.
In Poetry Tags Gabriella R Tallmadge, Poetry, Symptoms of Homesickness
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