Blackbird an online journal of literature and the arts Fall 2007  Vol. 6 No. 2

POETRY

Chris Abani
Victoria Chang
Michael Chitwood
Keith Ekiss
Gibson Fay-LeBlanc
Beth Ann Fennelly
Raza Ali Hasan
James Hoch
Cyan James
Julia Johnson
Larry Levis
Khaled Mattawa
Timothy O’Keefe
Catherine Pierce
Jon Pineda
John Poch
Austin Segrest
Louie Skipper
Ron Smith
Robert Thomas
Joshua Weiner
Lesley Wheeler
Charles Wright


CHARLES WRIGHT

In Praise of What is Missing

When a tooth is extracted, 
                                           some side of the holy wheel is unnotched,
And twists, unlike Ixion’s, in the wind and weather,
And one slips into wanting nothing more 
                                                                 from the human world,

And leans back, a drifting cloud,
Toward what becomes vacant and is nameless and is blue,
As days once were, and will be again.