Or Else
Something elegant. Sometimes eliminated in the automatons
of other centuries. The stocky robots, stiff-armed, battering
with whacks and buffs. Not the chaff of an idea. The elaborate
rotations and angles, a circumference of reach, an unthinking
ease allowing the parts of the arm to rest on the car’s opened
window frame. The bracelet sliding away from the funny bone
over the fine gold hairs. An El Dorado of joints whether
you want to blow your nose or a kiss. No need for the devil’s
long long spoon or a conduit of straws. There’s a bone end there.
Sharp. Between the upper arm and the forearm with their
different musculatures. Something like an elbow. Elbow
of time. A tiny door at the radius, ulna. Turn. Link. Portal.
Walk this way (using the knees). Two roads—step off—one wood.
Susan Grimm
Susan Grimm is the author of Almost Home (Cleveland State University Poetry Center 1997), Lake Erie Blue (BkMk Press 2004), and Roughed Up by the Sun’s Mothering Tongue (Finishing Line Press 2011). Her work has appeared in Blackbird, The Journal, The Cortland Review, Seneca Review, and Tar River Poetry. She earned an MFA in poetry through the Northeast Ohio MFA consortium (NEOMFA) and teaches creative writing part-time at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She also occasionally teaches classes for Literary Cleveland. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and can be found online at The White Space Inside the Poem.