Cynthia Hogue
The 16th Form of Containment
We’ve entered a zone where the claim
to plenty’s in abundantly empty words.
Here on the ground everything’s
burned, barren, where the angels
buzz over our heads like copters,
hovering—hovering as if God
manifest: M. deMon in his white
house, having barricaded himself in.
What’s safe for him isn’t for us, grace
a fickle dispensation and never
a given: like the air we breathe,
something which can be taken away.
Cynthia Hogue’s most recent collections are Revenance (2014), listed as one of the 2014 “Standout” books by the Academy of American Poets, and In June the Labyrinth (2017), both from Red Hen Press. Her third co-translation is Nicole Brossard’s Lointaines (forthcoming 2022). Among her honors are two NEA Fellowships, a MacDowell residency, and the Witter Bynner Translation Fellowship at the Santa Fe Art Institute. She lives in Tucson.