portion of the artwork for Stephen Massimilla's poetry

In Pieces
Stephen Massimilla

Like a man who shifts his head
in the wind and spots a possum shaking

on a telephone wire, I’ll let
my hair fissure the sky. I’ll forget

that no swan makes my voice break
into song. I’ll forget the child

with the face of a cracked egg.
And the cicadas’

empty shells. Last night,
the obsolete phone booth

in which I once called
for assistance was full

of shattered glass. Today,
a fraction of blue heron

brims above cattails: pretty, piti-
less. A sheet of cloud in a fork-

lift of storm. Morse dots of rain
on blades of turf. Through

the camera lens, my bloodshot eye
takes a shine to mirror-fish

in the choppy pond.
The man is cut out of the picture.


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FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 31 | Winter 2011