Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
Floaters
There whatwas that a face
at the edge of sightor a scatter
of minnowsthe eye’stossed confetti
speaking of the bodyfalling aparta clout
on the headjarring loosebits of cortical gel
like mothsor is itthe peripheral flicker
of memoryor is therea world inside
this onefilled with ghosts
The fourth poetry collection by John Witte is Disquiet (University of Washington Press, 2015). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, AGNI, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere, and have been included in The Norton Introduction to Literature, among other anthologies. He is the author of Loving the Days (Wesleyan University Press, 1978), The Hurtling (Orchises Press, 2005), and Second Nature (University of Washington Press, 2008). He is also the editor of numerous books, including The Collected Poems of Hazel Hall (Oregon State University Press, 2000). The recipient of two writing fellowships from the NEA, a residency at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and other grants and awards, he lives with his family in Eugene, Oregon, where he teaches literature at the University of Oregon. (updated 10/2015)