Hi.

I

Cede cues.

Fortitude is petrified allure.

Hi.

Flagrant with time’s duty,

Fallow as theory without a

Person in it,

Burrs gather in his fur.

Excuse his solemn vow.

Silence keeps on bleating out.

Impertinent the rust revising time,

The gutter coughing heavy dust,

The right angles impulse handbuilt

Having never taken consult with

The steam its engine spins to brick.

Becoming known emits semblance

That bends whip back to source,

The field where bulbs the mimicry

Of nerve—neatly not in row, nor

Fallow like the trench’s discontent,

But fulgent and eluding order’s kiln.

Midwife of a wait, you know to let

The apparatus rest. Hi tender shadow

Behind the sun, here I am. I’m here.

I’m licking the glint off forged wind.

Logan Fry is the author of Harpo Before the Opus (Omnidawn, 2019), and of recent poetry in Lana Turner, Fence, Prelude, Shitwonder, and The New York Review of Books.