The Invitation, and From the Window of Your Class You Can See a Tombstone

Abstract

The Invitation, and From the Window of Your Class You Can See a Tombstone Keith S. Wilson (bio) The Invitation the thing about the scorpion is he builtfrom nothing frogsong: a sad song. the story as we tell itends sooner than it has to end. consider: the poisonsits like a child in the boiling water of the back.the frog yells this or that (he moralizes) and is sure to dieand then you go to bed. america: next the frog turns over, sunny side up. thenthe scorpion licked instead his stomach (if you takewhat i mean). then the frog swallowedflywater. the scorpion thought this is it! this is really it! advancing west acrossthe river like the sun. exoskeleton, then beneath: the strange fluid of a different myth.do you think the scorpion dared to dream? he built from nothingfrogdance (a flopping). strange satellites encircling. radio chatter. we might tell any story of the water where the dead choose to go. we might call ourselvesanything to save ourselves the trouble. no angel would call this hell. he calls it idaho. says my forefather was not born here but here i amborn. and then he tastes the water. he lifted up as if about to drownand struck again and again and again but the frog was in another story, deep below him, in the thickest part of the daylight and the water.and then he pledged the story. thenhe too crossed the water [End Page 98] From the Window of Your Class You Can See a Tombstone (try to remember: they aren’t looking)a ghost is a rerun. the graveyard holds hermitcrabs and the sun is a whiteblackening. a prayer is a form(ababa) that someone strong made you learnwhen you thought you were weak. a gavel is a keythat only locks. you are the oneway street and the flashing light floored youcoming the wrong way. they’ll never findall the bodies. the sea opens up and the foamis one skin and the bottom holds so many another. [End Page 99] Keith S. Wilson Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian poet and a Cave Canem fellow. He is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and an Illinois Arts Council Agency Award, and has received both a Kenyon Review Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. Additionally, he has received fellowships or grants from Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the MacDowell Colony, among others. His book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon, 2019), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry. Copyright © 2022 Middlebury College