Today's poem is by Megan Sexton

Cento for the Resurrection
       

Everything is an event for those who know how to tremble,
nothing is out of season,
sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention,
the traits of the solitary bird are fire—
there were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows,
I don't remember all the particulars.

The day is emptying all of its pockets, laying out, one by one,
all of its possessions,
always a slow alphabet of rain speaking of drifting
and perishing to the air,
always to want to go back, to correct an error,
there is no salvation in elsewhere.

Meanwhile the world goes on,
we would like to ask the dog if there is a continuous whir
because the child in the house is growing.
In whose tale are hidden syllables of what happened
so long before that?
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart.
I felt my leanness as the sea ate me
over and over again.

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Copyright © 2023 Megan Sexton All rights reserved
from Birmingham Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission