A GRAFT IN CHANGSHA

by Daniel Bosch

Chinese doctors have saved a man's severed hand by grafting it to his ankle, it is reported. --BBC News, December 16, 2013

Among the amazing inventions
Of the Chinese: pulp paper,
A musical four-line stanza,
A tiny hand carved at the end

Of a bamboo shaft—each
In its way an acknowledgement
Of how often and how painfully
One’s reach exceeds one’s grasp.

Who has not scratched furiously
At a blank sheet, leaving faint scars
When one desired only words
Through which lifeblood flows?

Who has not punched and kicked
At the bounds of thought, only
To find oneself beyond them,
Seeking not a way out, but a way in?

Who has not felt some small thing
Make its glorious revolution
At the top of one’s sock or
Under the cuff of one’s pants?

No hand without extremity.
No mind that will not fold
Like paper. No stanza that will not cut
The breath to shape what one sees.

Every measure taken is temporary.
At the end of any given line
One believes each mute twist of the stick:
This tourniquet’s tight enough.   


Daniel Bosch is Senior Editor @ www.berfrois.com .

ANY ALLIGATOR

by Daniel Bosch

Police managed to whisk a 2-foot-long alligator into a box after a traveler spotted it under an escalator at O’Hare International Airport. -- Chicago Tribune, November 4, 2013 (Image source: Chicago Herpetological Society)

Any Alligator
In a state

Of nature
Will say “Fresh”

When he means
“Future,” will

Favor carrion’s
Flavors, stow

Prey away
In an under-

Water cache,
A murky keep

Where steeps
His three or


Four months’
Hoard of dis-

Gorged flesh.
The sound

Byte for all
He catches is

“See you later.”
He’s no flight

Risk, he’ll fight
And die

Right there for
What’s in store.

But in O’Hare,
Where scale-

Pelted carry-ons
Mock him,

Where deeply
Impressed dead

Kin parade
As O.T.K.

Boots, where
Reptile-backed

Black belts
Train in heavy-

Duty grey
Tupperware,

Some T.S.A.
Agents looking

On, some
Looking in,

In O’Hare,
It’s no wonder

Any Alligator
Fresh out

From under
An up-bound

Escalator
Might confuse

An interrogator
Saying “Terror”

For “Terra” or
“Hate” for “Hide.”


Daniel Bosch is Senior Editor @ www.berfrois.com .

SKYFALL HAIKU

by Daniel Bosch


Schooled by hard knocks, new
Siberian road signs read:
“Danger Falling Rocks.”

•

Image via @_marsi

•

No MXs, no
Tomahawks, long expected;
Just a rock star’s glow.


Daniel Bosch was the winner of the very first Boston Review Poetry Prize.  His dialogical reviews of poems by George Kalogeris and Frederick Seidel have recently been published at Berfrois and The Rumpus.  He lives in Chicago.