A poem by Amy Cutler
Rumpele stilt
Don’t you know / nobody can love you / or your name’s best memory. A little rattle ghost
or rumble shank. I think I’ve forgotten him. Everything was easier before I knew yours.
By stilt or stalk or cruel amusement, every frumpypigskin guessed your virtue. I think
I’ve forgotten him. And down by the spinning heart I drew every word for every curse.
I’ll go with Shortribs, Sheepshanks, or Laceleg: a poor girl’s milling tune. I think
I’ve forgotten him now. Dear, it’s not possible to kill off anything in rumpled words.
Nor any kind of woodland thing in the linguistic heart, but “something still murmurs
and roams about in the graveyards of language”. Junker, whine-screamer, little noise.
