reliquary. Number Four in the Seven Kitchens Press Editor’s Series, selected by Ron Mohring.

Published: October 1, 2009 [125 copies]
24 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0-98255290-2
$9.00

Boyer Rickel is the author of remanance (Parlor Press, 2008), Taboo (essays) (Wisconsin, 1999), arreboles (Wesleyan, 1991), and the poetry chapbook Surrender Ode (Scantily Clad Press, 2009). Recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Arizona Commission on the Arts, he has taught in the U. Arizona Creative Program since 1991.

When you asked, I thought at first
of the shore house as some kind of reliquary,
our days there like small bones,
as though time could have a body.
As though the pleasure of the daily
habits we invented had made that week
a shelter, or something sacred.
Then I recalled a boat I’d watched inch
the blue horizon between one rose stem
and another at the edge of the flagstone patio.
The giant trawler, a harmonious
imprecision, reduced to inconsequence
by a framing perspective. A fact
explicit and exegetical. A corrective
to metaphor, and just as reliable.

poems from reliquary online:

• [when you asked, I thought at first] at Verse Daily
• [so the animals are now in darkness] at No Tell Motel
• [one small door, his question] at No Tell Motel
• three poems at Back Room Live

Other poems online:

• “After disaster” at No Tell Motel
• Three poems at Spork

See also:

• Boyer Rickel’s website
• Christopher Nelson’s interview with Boyer

Please click here to purchase Boyer’s chapbook.