What Sparks Is Kerosene

Poets for Living Waters is a group of writers trying to both create work that addresses the issue of the Gulf of Mexico spill, but also does something practical like raise money for cleanup efforts. It's worth checking out even if giving money to random organizations isn't your thing. (Which for me it ain't.)


Here's something they featured which I quite liked.

Dawn

Sarah Green

What works is dish soap
squeezed and feathered over
wings. One wing per apron. One
entry per child. What
wings is leavening; not lard, not
thickening. What learns
is sore. What soaps is
womenfolk
in rubber gloves, is
old. We’ve known
the recipe for longer than we
say. We say it’s hard
to find the turtles. Everything’s
so dark. What you thought
gravel turned out to be fish.
What sparks
is kerosene. What spills is
years. Plankton are known
for ganging up. What lights
is dawn.




The unusual syntax and structure is really appealing, as well as the quick shifts from one subject and area of endeavor to another. It could be a big jumbled mess but instead it really stands on its own.