Invention of the World


Did we invent
ourselves, some leather
wounds, all corners, the double
jointed boxes of mouth, where shadows
gossip in incandescent
tongues, the babble of prayer,
or are we victims
tied to the forehead of God,
absorbing magic
incantations, the naked
voices of angel holocausts.



This poem “Invention of the World” originally appeared in The Times Between. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 107 (Winter 1985): 111.

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