Poem: The World Is Not Conclusion

Answers the size of silence. Tall as tidal winds. The fracture of letters and numbers pulled like wool up to my chin. Grid the knowable world from the sweat of my bed. An empty set. Count the seasons, count the sheep, count the dead. If word equaled father equaled alive again. If morning equaled apple equaled sated, sweet. Equations misfire, undaughter me. Try to forward the mind, distract with babble, equivocate. A Questioning dissolves. Solves no ache.

From “Lullaby (with Exit Sign),” Saturnalia Books, 2013.

Hadara Bar-Nadav is the author of “Lullaby (with Exit Sign),” “The Frame Called Ruin” and “A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight.” She is co-author of “Writing Poems,” 8th edition. She is also an associate professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.