The Language of Fog [Poem]

This is a poem by Lois Marie Harrod.

Vague and imprecise

forgetful as my father

as he faded, fuzzy

roundabout, the whatsit

wherever color of that bud,

bleached and blear-eyed,

the eye filmed over,

pink-eye, the crust.

At the dog show, I watch

a woman put eye drops

into the red rims

of her Afghan,

near-sighted, I suppose,

that big country

south of Russia,

the bride slipping

off the marriage carriage

to the misty howls of wolves,

China now not even a plate.

The mind goes out of its way

to find something in the mist,

Mount Huangshan,

the word looming

eventually, the sun

sucking up imprecision.

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Lois Marie Harrod’s 17^th collection Woman is forthcoming from Blue Lyra in December 2019. Her Nightmares of the Minor Poet appeared in June 2016 from Five Oaks; her chapbook And She Took the Heart appeared in January 2016; Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis (Cherry Grove Press) and the chapbook How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth (Dancing Girl Press) appeared in 2013. A Dodge poet, she is published in literary journals and online ezines from American Poetry Review to Zone 3. She teaches at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and at The College of New Jersey. Links to her online work: www.loismarieharrod.org.

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