From “Of Marks & Lacks” (XII.)

XII.) all the time[ ]in the end 
]a woman[ ]a brick[ ], a man[ 
]each—rattling[ 
]—refused death, respite[ 
the hunger of days[ ]when i am they, diastolic
heart begging arteries to pay back the blood owed, flaccid lungs
praying for the deliverance of air, i’ll regret[ 
]solemn days amid the weeks of[
isolation,[ 
leaden as a counterweight[ 
] 

] 
want now what is here:[ ]slate of this sky,[ 
]hemlocks,[ ]pasted thick 
with nor’easter snow. the raw, deep-set[ ]wind
chirring in the[ ]needles. here, 
heavy branches[ 
threatening to splinter[ ]here,[ 
]hardened, 
snowbound[ ]here. i want[ ]what is here. 

IAN HALEY POLLOCK

A 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry, Iain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, Spit Back a Boy (2011), Ghost, Like a Place (2018), and the forthcoming All the Possible Bodies (Alice James, September 2025). He directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.