by Philip Belcher
“A few is enough for me; so is one; and so is none.”
–Seneca, Letter VII to Lucilius
Memory—unkempt confederation
of disorderly states, dreamshed littered
with outcroppings of fact—recalls
the stuttering splatter, indecisive
drizzle of fourteen hands colliding
politely after a man drawls through lines
about flies and their names. Next, a deeper
sound, root-gnarled water, seeps beneath the sills
and fills the room. Walls sprout limbs draped with vines.
The once arid air now drips with fern-green
syllables, and spirits of Walcott, Yeats,
Achebe, and Faulkner awake in the stacks.
Twenty-five minutes of muffled thunder,
then a lush quiet as gratitude coils
and the ghosts return to their long slumber.
The same hands strike—individual slaps
no faster than a storm’s inaugural
drops. Then the surge into a steady rain,
then cloudburst, deluge. Fourteen hands is fine,
he said. I never read to more than two.
Philip Belcher has published poems and critical prose widely in literary journals, including Shenandoah, Southern Humanities Review, and 2River View. He published a chapbook, The Flies and Their Lovely Names, with Stepping Stones Press, and his full-length collection, Gentle Slaughter, is forthcoming from MadHat Press. He received the Porter Fleming Prize in Poetry and Shenandoah’s Carter Prize for the Essay. Philip holds degrees from Furman University (BA), Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.), Duke University School of Law (JD), and Converse College (MFA). He lives in Asheville, NC, where he is Vice President, Programs, for The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.
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