For the Logos David Keplinger (bio) I used to know words as a muted chartreuse,a pale mustard, their meanings condemningall who spoke them to dispassionate sameness.But now I know their consolations, their hardmath, their equals signs, like parted lips, halfa yawn. I know the long lives of words, organstransplanted in other tongues, cognates dis-seminated like eyes, and I love the rhyme’ssurprise. There comes a sensible agreementbetween strangers. Come, the apodictic hushof snow. There is an order that demands I change.There is an order to how they survive, rebootedfrom hale to hello, freckled like the egg in eachretelling, each old iteration, each also unique,like a Buddha’s smile, io sono, je suis, ja jsem,with minumed differences, the three iron nails.I know the trouble words cause; the complacencythey budge, how Hunger and Outrage are their first [End Page 85] sparring gods. The words have priestessesand priests, and I am one. This is the long mapof the after-worlds. Let curiosity be prayer.Let desire be the rebel I frond and crucify.I rub ashes on my body. I steal fire. I lower my head. [End Page 86] David Keplinger David Keplinger is the author of six collections of poetry, recently The Long Answer (Texas A&M, 2020) and Another City (Milkweed, 2018), which was awarded the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize. Since 2007 he has translated four collections from the German and Danish with authors Jan Wagner and Carsten René Nielsen. He teaches at American University in Washington, DC. Copyright © 2020 Middlebury College Publications