Doug Ramspeck

open hand

i once wrote a poem about a skull
& the poem wrote back & said 

the world is a rented room
& it said when you scoop out the pulp 

what’s left is the scaffolding
& once i wrote a poem about an open- 

handed slap     & the slap said
every unbroken window is alike 

every broken window has a story
& the window wrote back to the slap 

that a rounding error explains
the distance between the word 

on the page & the word inside
the skull     & the window said 

i am the tongue that slathers
all words in their saliva

________________________________________________________________________________________

Doug Ramspeck is the author of nine poetry collections, one collection of short stories and a novella. One recent book, Black Flowers, is published by LSU Press. Five books have received awards: Blur (Tenth Gate Prize), Distant Fires (Grayson Books Poetry Prize), The Owl That Carries Us Away (G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction), Original Bodies (Michael Waters Poetry Prize), Mechanical Fireflies (Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize) and Black Tupelo Country (John Ciardi Prize for Poetry). Individual poems have appeared in journals that include The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Slate and The Georgia Review. He is a three-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.