[palm]
by Dennis Hinrichsen
after Robert Desnos
I call to the one I love / who
answers /
I call /
to the one I love /
wind rattles the windowpane /
Desnos says the death
of god is just
the death
of a sound wave /
a vacuum my own voice fills /
calling out / not
to god /
but to night / ebony
night /
he thinks / poor fool / I’m going
to make it /
a beautiful drowned woman /
life /
a trick of radiance
and trembling /
you know the story /
how they loaded him /
with
others / onto trucks / to be shot /
and then / from the crowd /
a hand / open
palm /
appeared / and
and then another / yet
another /
fortune
pouring all over the world /
Desnos shouting “long life”
to the guards / and their
guns /
the local women /
the condemned / now /
laughing /
as the Nazis loaded up
the trucks /
returned the prisoners
to the barracks /
those
gaunt bodies finally stripped
of all their moonlight /
their sleep
narcotic / each voice
no more
of a god / than god was /
or Desnos /
edge
of a death camp /
though they had heard
the gearbox
grind /
driveshaft / throttle / as if
a nightingale / some
rare bird /
had bored out / its throat /
for them / in mirroring daybreak
I call to the one I love / who
answers /
I call /
to the one I love /
wind rattles the windowpane /
Desnos says the death
of god is just
the death
of a sound wave /
a vacuum my own voice fills /
calling out / not
to god /
but to night / ebony
night /
he thinks / poor fool / I’m going
to make it /
a beautiful drowned woman /
life /
a trick of radiance
and trembling /
you know the story /
how they loaded him /
with
others / onto trucks / to be shot /
and then / from the crowd /
a hand / open
palm /
appeared / and
and then another / yet
another /
fortune
pouring all over the world /
Desnos shouting “long life”
to the guards / and their
guns /
the local women /
the condemned / now /
laughing /
as the Nazis loaded up
the trucks /
returned the prisoners
to the barracks /
those
gaunt bodies finally stripped
of all their moonlight /
their sleep
narcotic / each voice
no more
of a god / than god was /
or Desnos /
edge
of a death camp /
though they had heard
the gearbox
grind /
driveshaft / throttle / as if
a nightingale / some
rare bird /
had bored out / its throat /
for them / in mirroring daybreak
Dennis Hinrichsen’s most recent book is Skin Music, co-winner of the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press, as well as finalist in the Society for Midland Authors annual literary contest. New work of his has appeared in The Adroit Journal, Fogged Clarity, Ghost Town, Memorious, and Michigan Quarterly Review. His work has also received a Best of the Net Award for 2014 and the Third Coast Poetry Prize for 2016 (selected by Nick Flynn). He lives in Lansing, Michigan.