Friday, December 12, 2025

This Present Labor

maritime fog envelopes stuff 

full O slow train, O head lamps 

O workers decked out 


in reflective orange and hard hat 

safety trained, bobbing breath

O, Oceanus breathes wet


slips away to blue, to gulls, O bellow 

horns, drywallers crack jokes 

below, the concrete men


screwing around between task

and the wrapping up, resorting

to resolve, spending time


through yule and aching hands

the open present

O children, behold!


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Friday writings 207: in between

3 comments:

  1. A fascinating deployment of O – in a way that doesn't destroy the meaning of the rest of the text, even while it creates additional meanings. (One I got, which was perhaps not consciously intended, was the O as the eye of a telescope through which the protagonist views at least some of these sights.)

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  2. Of course, Rosemary's comment is brilliant ~ I wasn't certain where you were with the "O" but like very much how it becomes the "in between" words.

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