Doerscher, Ali

English

University of Montana

CutBank Volume 1 Issue 77 CutBank 77 Article 6 Fall 2012 At Arm's Length Ali Doerscher Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cutbank  Part of the Creative Writing Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Recommended Citation Doerscher, Ali (2012) "At Arm's Length," CutBank: Vol. 1 : Iss. 77 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cutbank/vol1/iss77/6 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in CutBank by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact scholarworks@mso.umt.edu. AL I  D O E R S C H E RAT A R M ’S LENGTHA fflic t io ni t  o n ly  staggers th is  dawnI am w a itin g  fo r the dew to break over m y feversthere is more than one and now  tw e n ty  years passing under a fo o t fa ll I a d m itI am younginside th is sad house bu t it  is periphera lthe dawn I mean it  is b lossom ingand I see tw o o f  eve ry th ingthe voice d o u b lin g  as a forest the dawnhas already risen therebu t water the feversone o f  them  is ta ttooed on m y ribsit  is 4a m here it  is s t il l darkness herethere are some th ings tha t refuse to break20Supplementw h a t  d id  he tell you of the  sn owfi nches  I k n o wit is still s u m m e r  b u t  I ve been p re pa r i ngI fo lded the  sheets  I s tood  upthey are pale bi rds typical ly fearlessthey are s im ple  repet i t ive  songs  an d  1 am  smallweat hered  the  w ea th e r  c h a n g in g  the  l ightsu sp en d e d  below the  surface o f  the  lakethe  d ew  th a t  t rembles  in the  grassand  it is nearly fall w h a t  does  he k n o wa b o u t  ta t toos  a b o u t  neststhe  typical  c lu tch  is f rom 3 to 6 eggsDoerscherApologyI would  have liked to keep youat a fair d is tance  I was not  m ad e  a forestby choice you knowthese k inds  o f  th ings  are accidents  but  the daw n has al ready risen Herethe s imple  repet it ive songscl ing so t ight ly  to the  bo d yand it’s all too tar abs t rac ted  to be t r u t hit’s per ipheral  i t’s a fair d is t ancean d  there is more  than  one o f  eve ry th ing22 Doerscher

At Arm\u27s Length

https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3687&amp;context=cutbank

At Arm\u27s Length

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