Gothic
Thorned churches pierced the quaint hamlets
like spicules that stiffen sponges
For protection the villagers flocked to the naves
Elsewhere some belugas with no god
adopted a narwhal as an inquiline its magnificent
canine a spire for ghosts
Museum
Room after room of how we thought it was
figures in skins around three cold stones
a dried smelt lit for a taper
There is an oil pressed out of history
a resin ignitable able to polish lies
and set fire to the upper floors
with their galleys and slave work
Culture is history with its mouth open
A howling in time with a fish to see by
Allan Peterson’s most recent book is: This Luminous: New and Selected Poems, a finalist for the 2020 Oregon Book Award. Some other titles include Precarious, All the Lavish in Common (Juniper Prize), and Fragile Acts, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Ashland, Oregon. He is a poet and visual artist, and may be found at www.allanpeterson.net.
Read more poetry by Allan Peterson appearing in Terrain.org: two poems and two poems.
Header photo by SF Photography, courtesy Shutterstock.
