Breath & Shadow

POETRY

DAVID KOPASKA–MERKEL

She's dead, Jim

did
you
follow
us into
the singing forest
the black bells that we harvested
their medicinal properties value on the black
market unearthly beauty and participation
in a sentient vegetal
continent–spanning
network it
was death
to
harm
cos
if
you knew
why didn't
you warn your best friend
and your ex–girlfriend about it?

For the poetry geeks: This poem is a Fibonacci–no ku, tripled, one triplet reversed, with one line deleted so the total does not exceed 20 lines.

David Kopaska–Merkel was born in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1872. He attended school until the fourth grade, but dropped out after only 18 years. He took to electronics like a duck to water, once the field was invented. He later became a ghostwriter for scientific reports. In his spare time he specializes in yak pedicures and appraisals of stuffed marmots. Check out http://www.dailycabal.com.

Thank you, sponsors of this poem:
Jennifer Alaine
Mike Allen
Liz Bennefeld
Tony Bernstein
John Borneman
G. O. Clark
Pat Clements
Malcolm Deeley
Andy Duncan
Mark Graber
Robert Hughes
Birda Mason
Bob Merkel
Terrie Leigh Relf
Andy Rindsberg
Margie Simon
Frida Westford
Stephen M. Wilson
5 Anonymous