Idle Speculation – Deanna Witt

November 29, 2019

i don’t want to name it.
Sistine. Ku Klux. Foul.

it’s something like the hydrosphere,
somehow intimidating, like a single hair
against an unmarked piece of paper.

it always starts with an elfin scurry,
bloviating like bindweed: the heavy gray of childhood, having finished saying its prayers,

which only now sound like old murder ballads.

the cross-fertilization of one falsehood or another gives rise to
the guilt of negligence

a minute’s hesitation
turns to a honeycomb of blankness
and like children slain,
we run out of things to say.