Write the body plain —
a cracked jar
left on the porch through winter.
Use the word ache
not as metaphor
but measurement.
When the rust spreads,
follow it.
Do not seek rescue,
see the light is as it is —
late,
angled,
no more than light.
When the field is empty,
it is still a place.
Language is a screen door.
Like smoke,
meaning will get through.
Originally from North Carolina, Elizabeth Fogle currently teaches and lives in Western Pennsylvania where she teaches writing and literature. She’s had poems published over the years in Nimrod, Harpur Palate, Asheville Poetry Review, River Heron, and Phoebe among others and has just completed her first full-length manuscript When the Field is Empty.