Uncanny—the little shrine our friend
Tanya’s grandfather built around his Virgin Mary statue,
chairs pointed at it, a stone in each chair—maybe for the souls
of great-grandparents—in New Jersey, where Walt Whitman lived
like a long-horned sheep in a meadow
wedged as a paper stopper for elderberry wine.
Primitive
DAVID BLAIR is the author of three books of poetry, Ascension Days, Friends with Dogs, and Arsonville. He is also the author of Walk Around: Essays on Poetry and Place and a forthcoming poetry collection, Barbarian Seasons, both from MadHat Press.