Issue 1: Maxima Kahn

St. Martin in the Fields

this morning my body wrapped like a cord

like something caving in on itself

the little stone in my chest knocking in its cavity

and though the sun strikes white-gold

on the evergreens and a man on the radio

mentions the Academy of St. Martin

in the Fields, and i think how nice it must be

to stand in the fields, how all our academies

ought to be in the fields, where we might 

consider the lilies and learn––

now another man is speaking of “last night’s

massacre,” as if it were a nightly occurrence,

and then the music comes on, the fierce beauty

of an orchestra, the luring cry of an oboe

and i am lost–– the little stone grinds down

there is something i cannot recover from

something like knowledge, or blindness

something like wandering while the world

keeps flowing past my door

it holds me in its teeth like a riddle

write me, tell me the answer

--Maxima Kahn




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