#j estanislao lopez

A Metaphor
J. Estanislao Lopez 

Imagine you raise a glass of iced water
to your lips, and, feeling a strange touch,
you look into the glass to find a dead gnat
floating at the surface. You see, there are
metaphors everywhere about the presence
of evil. But metaphors are misread.
We discover later in life, too late to change it,
that evil is not signified by the gnat
(the gnat is the casualty), but by the water,
which we raise to our lips every single day.

–

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2019: Conversation with Phillis Wheatley #2, Tiana Clark
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2017: Young Wife’s Lament, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2016: For the Confederate Dead, Kevin Young
2015: Awaking in New York, Maya Angelou
2014: when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story, Gwendolyn Brooks
2013: Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey, Hayden Carruth
2012: My Place, Franz Wright
2011: from The Wild Geese, Wendell Berry
2010: Love After Love, Derek Walcott
2009: To This May, W.S. Merwin
2008: Father, Ted Kooser
2007: from Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, Galway Kinnell
2006: Crusoe in England, Elizabeth Bishop
2005: Dream Song 1, John Berryman