Sol LeWitt detail at MassMOCA, 2011 (image via Benjamin Kabak on Flickr)
Inchworm at Embarcadero
Where the system map’s
metal edge abuts
a fuzzed pink scalp,
an inchworm doubles back,
polite but unrepentant
in sounding the pent-up
space–hides half itself
like an em dash scrunching
to a solemn hyphen,
or a gymnast, all arm
between invisible rings,
or a pawn condemned
to the same two moves,
creative though short-lived,
or the steely tip
on the tuning fork
of a sonometer, twitching,
poised to decipher
the immiserated quiet
that descends (for some
more than others)
when we hit the Transbay
Tube, jolted closer together,
heads worlds away.
* * *
Nate Klug is the author of Rude Woods, a modern translation of Virgil’s Eclogues, and Anyone, a book of poems. He works as a Congregationalist minister and lives in California.
