for Virginia Woolf by way of a dream delivery service Drop your hands to the river, Ouse, kick the stones into the river, kick the river kick the stones at the mud-bottom, laugh, become brackish in escape. The overcast sun, the trickle of abyss the ink, the air, the wing the algae dripping— strike first and strike hard at the bank head mania. Reverse your path, the room, the river spit yourself out again, unfurl your pockets, and dutiful dunes ride you back to your favorite chair, ginger and tea pen-cup priestess, scribe of consequence— the pressure from all sides, now a shallow baptism of snails.
Laura Minor won the 2020 John Ciardi Poetry Prize. Her critically acclaimed debut book of poems, Flowers As Mind Control, is on BkMk Press/University of Arkansas Press, 2021. She was also a finalist for the 2019 National Poetry Series and the winner of the 2019 ILA's Rita Dove Poetry Award. She teaches poetry at Oklahoma State University.
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