A Poet’s Mother Dies from Covid
No one inherits eloquent words nor leases the brilliance
of a perfect sonnet transcribed onto parchment in blue ink.
I speak no language that elevates each syllable so that every
word will be remembered alongside the dead.
It is a myth that poets possess inexhaustible grace
and passion, or feel more deeply than other human bodies.
There is no hidden box, dovetailed jointed, stained and polished,
that holds the perfect magic of metaphor and meter.
There is only a man standing mute over granite,
only a boy who misses his mom.
*
Le Hinton is the author of six poetry collections including, most recently, Sing Silence (Iris G. Press, 2018). His work can be found or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2014, The Progressive Magazine, the Skinny Poetry Journal, The Baltimore Review, The Pittsburgh Review, and outside Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.