x happened can we agree x happenedx happened and then fire happenedand then they fell into a red salt poolin a sea of exile who was to take them inwhose strangers were they x happenedand the red salt waters rose abovetheir thighs can we agree that y mighthave happened upon reflection giventhe will to make y happen but neverhappened can we agree to sit togetherin the grove where x happened listeningto x as it happened according to listeningto why x had to happen according towanting to undo the x that was done towanting to ask forgiveness but tongue-tied by nightmares of the loss that mightensue reaching for words as composed asnelson mandela’s this then is the soundrising of x as it happened can we agreewe hear the blood of the olive might webecome the most fortunate of creatureswhom g-d forbid x should ever happen toagain who build our homes by the fountof living waters tend our flocks andfeed our neighbors from a seething potwho walk in the stillness of cedars
X
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- May 19, 2021
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“X” copyright 2020 by Lee Sharkey.
First published in the January/February 2021 issue of The Kenyon Review.
Reprinted from I Will Not Name It Except to Say (Tupelo Press, 2021) by permission of Tupelo Press.
Lee Sharkey’s seventh collection of poems, I Will Not Name It Except to Say, was published posthumously by Tupelo Press in May 2021. The collection, which includes the poem “X,” was compiled during the final weeks of her life in Fall 2020. Sharkey’s earlier books include Walking Backwards (Tupelo, 2016) and Calendars of Fire (Tupelo, 2013). Her poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Consequence, FIELD, Kenyon Review, and Tikkun, and has received a number of awards, including the 2017 Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize and the 2018 Maine Literary Award in Poetry. She served for fifteen years as co-editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal.
North Adams, Massachusetts
“In her vibrant I Will Not Name It Except to Say, Sharkey teaches her throat ‘the sounds of a new language.’ Sharkey’s lyrical precision, wild imagery, and heart-breaking tenderness weave connections and trouble, ranging from the pleasures of old love to improvisations on German Expressionism, family memory, a provocative spiritualism, and difficult history. In every poem, Sharkey makes her readers strive with the poet to speak new words and to see through the searing perceptions that Sharkey’s poems have made newly possible.”
—Janice Harrington
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