Blackbird an online journal of literature and the arts Fall 2007  Vol. 6 No. 2

POETRY

Chris Abani
Victoria Chang
Michael Chitwood
Keith Ekiss
Gibson Fay-LeBlanc
Beth Ann Fennelly
Raza Ali Hasan
James Hoch
Cyan James
Julia Johnson
Larry Levis
Khaled Mattawa
Timothy O’Keefe
Catherine Pierce
Jon Pineda
John Poch
Austin Segrest
Louie Skipper
Ron Smith
Robert Thomas
Joshua Weiner
Lesley Wheeler
Charles Wright


GIBSON FAY-LEBLANC

Ventriloquist on the Moor
                             after Klee

The ladder in his throat
rungless, greased. His voices—
unformed whimpers now—

fester in his ears. He wanders
in a fog that stinks with wound—
wort and wonders how long

his body will last when he lies
down in the peat. Will he
decay once for each of them

or become bones in days—
organs proving empty
but for the voices’ carrion

inside his lungs? His lips
splinter. His chest clatters.
His heart is not his own.