Erin HONEYCUTT
^{THREE poems}
_{MEMPHIS / MEMPHIS
15.    96.    11.}  

^§ 15.

                his pick-ups
                picked it all up
                by the base of the sepulcher

                with mist on over
                driving up the walls,
                pale blue in overdrive talked into it
                the inlaid fountain
                up above
                and the
                dive bar basement
                up above
                and the Dutch pond
                with dragonflies
                up above
                and the pick-ups
                sounded like
                teeth cackling
                over the new lute
                music for film

^§ 96.

                she squeezed light
                here is that list
                gold
                horror
                hue-shaped bird-gave-up
                dog-walked-into-car ticket lost
                thicker jack
                she squeezed light like this
                ticket stolen
                yellow bone
                wicker gate by
                the bee’s,
                oyster mouth spoiled
                thicker jack hammering

^§ 11.

                follow up the staircase
                of the hollow cavity where light is fretted or unfretted,
                sound hole, a hole in my
                body in the hole of wood,
                sounded by the bare fingers
                on a table. still following
                the light up the staircase
                that is twisting now, ever
                so slowly to the right
                of my body, parallel strings
                of my neck rising
                up and up to the end
                of the neck where
                it is turned
                by tension—
                it is the
                player’s tension.
                nearing the top of
                the staircase, it is
                branching now
                under a huge open
                space, an atrium

                of strings where
                you thought ‘more’
                was not possible.
                a cartography
                that maps two
                different origins,
                one in the Maghreb,
                                  one a courtly
                                  lute in Europe and the other
                                  remained out.