FLORENCE 1883 CE, by Ryan Holden

puppet carved of wood
only a child is allowed a name

& yet a tragedy in the hardness

of heart—an insect’s death

can something so clumsy

be the reflection & open path

a fool will walk past the edge

of a word & plummet

a life incidental to its

original calling—stringless

& the light opens

bathes the tongue & considers

the nature of its name

is the spirit of its lie

Ryan Holden is a graduate student in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. His poems have been recently published in LeafGarden Press, Up the Staircase, Country Dog Review, Underground Voices, and Greensilk Journal. He received an Honorable Mention for The Katharine C. Turner Prize of The Academy of American Poets in 2009. He has received a fellowship to teach at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China for the summer of 2010.