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THE
UNFIELD
That
is how it was always
spoken
of by men
among
men on the plain: breeze-
broken
ash sore, hole
that
there was not a word for.
They
went in as dawn froze night
out
of a clear sky—
three
friends kept by rope in taut
doubt’s
touch: down the rim
of
the hole, the only such.
Words
died. Words were sucked
from lips
by
a moveless wind.
The
leader paid out the ropes;
wide
scope was given
and
eyes saw phantasmal shapes.
Nothing
held. Ropes and clothes
burned
flesh
wounds as they fell
to
bits like acid gas. Horned
guessed-at
gamy heads
squinted
and ate up their names.
The
three were lost to outside,
could
not compare, sense,
devote
will, call aloud.
Good
men who each tried,
they
died in the ash of speech.
Alan
Marshfield
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