One Poem by Nate Klug
Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected one poem by Nate Klug for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
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.
