Poet Michael Todd Steffen’s spiral notebook is open “like a clean carp.” And in its finite space upon the page is the poet’s pathway to the infinite.

Notebook

Michael Todd Steffen

Spined with a spiral wire: is it by

a figuration of the infinite that you are bound,

held together by the ever-unfolding, lying

open like a cleaned carp

staring at the ceiling, listlessly

editing my lines hot off the ballpoint,

damp sticks to the spark?

When it comes down to jamming a slice,

eating a page, the wind leaves

the arbor in a helpless stillness,

the prince reading words.

Yet there you keep them as the earth its secrets

for the dog’s restless digging

another day that yields a bone.

— Michael Todd Steffen

___________________________

To have your work considered for the LYRICAL send it to:
dougholder@post.harvard.edu