Online Exclusive

01.21.09
Last Man
The hawthorn is God’s hat
And patterns in the marble
Swarm like bees

The world as I knew it would
Saunters out of the sexpool and lilacs
It begins to walk away

Little clodhopper
Crab-apple numb with cold
Go quickly and take the buttercup
Keep pace with the sweet earth I cannot keep

I did not think the end would fall in the middle way
But I am happy now
That now is the hour
Even burrowing animals become creatures of the air 

Donald Revell is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently of White Campion and The English Boat (both Alice James Books), as well as six volumes of translations from the French, including Apollinaire’s Alcools (Wesleyan), Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, Laforgue’s Last Verses, and Verlaine’s Songs without Words (all Omnidawn). Winner of the PEN USA Translation Award and two-time winner of the PEN USA Award for Poetry, he has also won the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize.