ours poetica
Jayme Ringleb reads "My Husband, Lost in the Wild"
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View count: | 5,429 |
Likes: | 535 |
Comments: | 40 |
Duration: | 02:34 |
Uploaded: | 2020-09-14 |
Last sync: | 2024-10-18 18:45 |
Jayme Ringleb reads his poem "My Husband, Lost in the Wild".
Jayme Ringleb:
https://jaymeringleb.com/
https://twitter.com/jaymeringleb
Thanks for watching Ours Poetica, which is produced by Complexly, if you’re a US citizen and you want to not only keep imagining the world complexly with us but also have a voice in your government, check out How To Vote In Every State. The rules for voting are different depending on where you live, so we’ve made a whole series of videos explaining how to vote in each state, as well as some advice for special cases like territories and overseas voters. Check out our 2020 guide at youtube.com/howtovoteineverystate
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Jayme Ringleb:
https://jaymeringleb.com/
https://twitter.com/jaymeringleb
Thanks for watching Ours Poetica, which is produced by Complexly, if you’re a US citizen and you want to not only keep imagining the world complexly with us but also have a voice in your government, check out How To Vote In Every State. The rules for voting are different depending on where you live, so we’ve made a whole series of videos explaining how to vote in each state, as well as some advice for special cases like territories and overseas voters. Check out our 2020 guide at youtube.com/howtovoteineverystate
Brought to you by Complexly, The Poetry Foundation, and poet Paige Lewis. Learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
11 issues of Poetry, subscribe today for $20: https://poetrymagazine.org/OursPoetica
Follow us elsewhere for the full Ours Poetica experience:
twitter.com/ourspoeticashow
instagram.com/ourspoeticashow
facebook.com/ourspoeticashow
#poetry #ourspoetica
Hi, my name is Jayme Ringleb, and I'm reading my poem "My Husband, Lost in the Wild".
My Husband, Lost in the Wild
He said he buried
his right eye in South Georgia —
on a dare, he said,
when he was little, beneath
one green ash of of two
that mark the end of a road
whose name he's
by now forgotten: Lonesome
something, maybe Dog
or Cricket. He said
he couldn't love me, not
really, not without
his old right eye,
and anyway he'd left
his tongue as a tip
slid under a mug
at a small North Florida diner,
would collect it too
along the way, seeing
as he'd asked the server
to save it, and she had kindly
agreed. Three of his ribs
were further gone — one in Wisconsin,
where he'd planted it like a tree
though he believed even then
nothing would bloom on it.
Another he pawned in Manitoba
for a silver bracelet,
which he wore only
when he was very sad,
and his last rib
he'd been keeping
in a safe deposit box
in a credit union
on the alien Oregon coast
where he'd visit sometimes,
stopping often at vantages
to take in expanses of pines
covered in moss
and something else, like brine,
and the pines were tall,
tall and uncommunicating,
as if they had been designed
only to listen. His ears
he'd left with me,
I told them
everything — words
I had invented for the color
of new moons, city names
I had given to four slender
ant colonies that had since
emerged on the lawn.
I told the ears Come back to me,
but they were unable to
relay these types of things,
and anyway there was nothing
else to do. I took all
my littlest veins
and pitched them
as a woven tightrope
out of the kitchen window
and hooked, with
a makeshift grapple, the cheek
of the visible moon, which
carried me away, and I was sorry
to have wounded it like that
and I was sorry to be carried
by what I had wounded.
My Husband, Lost in the Wild
He said he buried
his right eye in South Georgia —
on a dare, he said,
when he was little, beneath
one green ash of of two
that mark the end of a road
whose name he's
by now forgotten: Lonesome
something, maybe Dog
or Cricket. He said
he couldn't love me, not
really, not without
his old right eye,
and anyway he'd left
his tongue as a tip
slid under a mug
at a small North Florida diner,
would collect it too
along the way, seeing
as he'd asked the server
to save it, and she had kindly
agreed. Three of his ribs
were further gone — one in Wisconsin,
where he'd planted it like a tree
though he believed even then
nothing would bloom on it.
Another he pawned in Manitoba
for a silver bracelet,
which he wore only
when he was very sad,
and his last rib
he'd been keeping
in a safe deposit box
in a credit union
on the alien Oregon coast
where he'd visit sometimes,
stopping often at vantages
to take in expanses of pines
covered in moss
and something else, like brine,
and the pines were tall,
tall and uncommunicating,
as if they had been designed
only to listen. His ears
he'd left with me,
I told them
everything — words
I had invented for the color
of new moons, city names
I had given to four slender
ant colonies that had since
emerged on the lawn.
I told the ears Come back to me,
but they were unable to
relay these types of things,
and anyway there was nothing
else to do. I took all
my littlest veins
and pitched them
as a woven tightrope
out of the kitchen window
and hooked, with
a makeshift grapple, the cheek
of the visible moon, which
carried me away, and I was sorry
to have wounded it like that
and I was sorry to be carried
by what I had wounded.