The mountain is one speed. The river
_ _ is one rush. The hummingbirds’ needles
_ _ _ _ are one speed. The boulders are one rush.
The nectar in the globe flower is one speed.
_ _ The boy throwing the hummingbird mountain
_ _ _ _ at his father is one speed, the boulder
that crushes his father is one rush, the nectar
_ _ that drips on Father’s near dead lips is one speed—
_ _ _ _ he closes his eyes with one rush.
Lauren Berry is featured in AGNI‘s Emerging Poets Interview Series. She is the author of the poetry collection The Lifting Dress (Penguin, 2011), a National Poetry Series Winner selected by Terrance Hayes. She received a BA from Florida State University and an MFA from the University of Houston, where she won the Inprint Paul Verlaine Prize in Poetry and served as poetry editor of Gulf Coast. In 2009–2010, she held the Diane Middlebrook Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, AGNI Online, Denver Quarterly, Iron Horse, and Cream City Review. She lives in Houston, where she teaches twelfth-grade English for YES Prep Public Schools. (updated 6/2012)
Read “Training Ritual for Threat: A Conversation with Lauren Berry” by Eric Higgins in AGNI Online.