By Emily Skillings, from Fort Not, her first book of poetry. The collection was published by The Song Cave in October.

Every word in this poem is a dead body.
Each word dies as you read it
and floats behind in a wooden canoe
that covers itself with itself
to make a coffin. A white, historical plane
knits above the dead word to shroud
and replace it. The poem before (this) point
is streaming and invisible. The rivulets
on which the…