Sam Gilpin

THE SMELL OF FUMES

brief sequence of stillness

driving south into woods

a map of tones
grinding through
strained air

I remember thinking your voice sounds strange over the phone

soft filament of stamen over soil

words are a surface like fixed carbon, like light fading away boring through
flattened landscape, a blueish, grayish ash in foreground

                      this idea of place hampered by cleanliness. what is irrelevant now.
                      the mayfly dies without eating. the field like burnt metal with
                      pines sharping above.

curve of voice distinguished from black bark

replace transparency of glass with aluminum

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Sam Gilpin is a poet originally from Portland, OR, living in Las Vegas, NV, as a Black Mountain Institute Fellow Ph.D. Candidate in Poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received a BA in English from the University of Utah, and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in various journals and magazines, most recently in Sonora Review, Mistake House, and Colorado Review.