The other one has tried to reach it
across the ocean of the shoulder,
tried to stop it from hitting, from sending
a man to death with a scribbled word.
The body wishes it would listen
more to the body, refuse for once
this urge to travel an alley without
eye, tongue, or the two versatile feet.
The heart, tomorrow, will have her way
with it. Like the bones of the rib cage,
so birds of the air. The river will turn
in its path, the blue ground angle up,
every millionth part of God conspire
to bring the right to answer for itself,
for all the hands that closed or waved away
the weak untouchable things, come now
to throne, to town, his own driveway on
their knees to be healed.
* * *
Richard Robbins grew up in Southern California and Montana. He studied with Richard Hugo and Madeline DeFrees at the University of Montana, where he earned his MFA in creative writing. Robbins has published four books of poems. "Right" is from his collection, Radioactive City, which won the 2009 Bellday Poetry Prize. Robbins directs the creative writing program and Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
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