it’s a question of relativity
ignorant view that there are two
split down the middle a brain’s
how and how not to see landscape
or hear a heartbeat an echo
a distraction from the other
and me thing and essence each
where are we even free
cut through the dry ochred earth
we need borders to cross
and again in almost
of work the transportation business
deficit and accrual an increase
effort of balancing side
is an abstraction rocking us
align to misalign
to the enormous
an exposure of the usual
sides
consciousness divided
when we look outside
detect a rhyme one
by turns stroke evoke you
requiring for identity the other
to fly over this road
this line drawn in the sand
to find ourselves again
the same place this line
a kind of attention
of possible answers in the physical
by side even eye movement
from limbic to critique
a door swung wide
all we could ever ask
Alice B Fogel is the New Hampshire poet laureate. Her collections include A Doubtful House, Interval: Poems Based on Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” which won the Schaffner Award for Music in Literature & the 2016 NH Literary Award, & Be That Empty, a national bestseller in 2008. Strange Terrain is her guide to appreciating poetry without necessarily “getting” it. Nominated ten times for the Pushcart, she has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other awards, & her poems have appeared in many journals & anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Spillway, Hotel Amerika, The Inflectionist, & DIAGRAM.
