Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
Mystery of the Noise the Air Makes When Milled
It’s enough to force you over the edge
_ _ and into the water.
This is one consequence of mining wind
_ _ to generate light:
killings, the rate of which rises in towns
_ _ where the white blades
turn, driven by heat. Still, on a calm day,
_ _ something is always
moving, suggesting a harness.
Beth Bachmann has published poems in The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Her first book, Temper (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry. (updated 6/2010)