-Patty Paine,<\/strong>
\nThe Sounding Machine<\/span><\/a><\/i>, 2012 \u00a9\u00a0Accents Publishing<\/span><\/p>\n
The dark beyond the window is
\nnot the same as the dark inside<\/p>\n
a piano, a dark you can\u2019t know,
\njust as your body, sitting there<\/p>\n
beside the piano, is an enclosure
\nwith its own unknowable dark.<\/p>\n
This is metaphor
\nfor nothing. Just as a bird is not<\/p>\n
a conceit, no matter how hard we want
\nto feel wings open<\/p>\n
across our backs, taste flight
\non our tongues. Even in death<\/p>\n
a bird is not a blade that cuts
\nto the quick of our loss, it\u2019s just<\/p>\n
a splayed thing, something to be
\nstepped around, for decomposition to have<\/p>\n
its efficient way, I don\u2019t mean
\nto be cynical, but there are days<\/p>\n
when language is heavy
\nfurniture you push around<\/p>\n
a house made of nothing
\nbut hallways. I\u2019m not feeling<\/p>\n
sorry for myself, if that\u2019s what
\nyou\u2019re thinking. I just want<\/p>\n
you to be careful, because
\nsometimes a poem can lie.<\/p>\n
It can make you think darkness
\nis a curtain that can be swept<\/p>\n
back to reveal a sky gilded in light,
\nwhere wing beats fall<\/p>\n
into a rhythm of hope, hope, hope.<\/p>\n
-Patty Paine,<\/strong>
\nThe Sounding Machine<\/span><\/a><\/i>, 2012 \u00a9\u00a0Accents Publishing<\/span><\/p>\n
![\"Patty](\"http:\/\/accents-publishing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/patty_paine_md.jpg\")
<\/a>Patty Paine is the author of\u00a0Feral<\/i>\u00a0(Imaginary Friend Press),\u00a0Elegy & Collapse<\/i>\u00a0(Finishing Line Press), and co-editor of\u00a0Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Contemporary Arabian Gulf Poetry<\/i>\u00a0(Garnet Publishing & Ithaca Press). Her poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in\u00a0Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts, The Atlanta Review, Gulf Stream, The Journal<\/i>\u00a0and many other publications. She is the founding editor of\u00a0Diode Poetry Journal<\/i>, and is an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar where she teaches writing and literature, and is assistant director of Liberal Arts & Sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"