Lent Poem #1

Variations on a Theme by Elizabeth Bishop
joanna vogel

The art of losing isn’t hard to master, only
it is hard – keys and continents
notwithstanding, the spaces left vacant are
firm as bodies, like cement or frozen
chewing gum and I wake each morning with hip-
bone shaped bruises and bits of blood
dripping from fresh scars in the shapes
of teeth and fingernails which I’ve bumped
into during the night-walks. My hands
outstretched, I drop each thorn
that sticks.