Status Updates From Bone Map: Poems

In this 2nd reading of this poet’s book, I realized a couple of poems have lengthy similes. I loved this one in her poem Deer Rub:

… washes the antlers
of blood, like a curator cleaning the bones

of a saint in the crypt beneath a church
at the end of a century, when the people

have begun to think of the bodies
as truly dead and unraisable,

when children have begun to carry knives
in their pockets…

I read this poetry collection years ago and I loved the title poem. I never did review it. I’m re-reading so I can do a proper review. The cover is glorious by the way.

Out at sea, each night
is long. Each night
has one sound I know:
the moon against the water
like your cheek across mine
in another life.
...
We are built to live in each other.
This means we are built to ruin.

I see you standing on a far continent
and between us stretches
impenetrable darkness,
as if I must die to reach you.
I think the world
must be a hollow longing
filled with more of itself -
but no, darkness is a substance
that bends. I will oil and burn
my hands for light
before I stop searching.