Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
God in the Details
I’ve seen to it that ants
carry their dead
in the ceremonial style
of a great long poem
but the distances
are manageable
and how heavy
after all is an ant
when I am myself
a shadow borne
so lightly
Mike White is the author of two poetry collections, How to Make a Bird with Two Hands (The Word Works) and Addendum to a Miracle (Waywiser Press), which won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. Individual poems have appeared in such magazines as Poetry, Ploughshares, The New Republic, FIELD, The Yale Review, and The Threepenny Review. He lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah. (updated 2017)
How to Make a Bird with Two Hands was awarded the Washington Prize by The Word Works. One of the poems in the collection, “God in the Details,” was first published here.