G.C. Waldrep

the primate hospital
October 25, 2018 Waldrep G.C.

the primate hospital
 

(1)

I have raptured the oars.

You may leave

the dull scythe

on its splintered snath

 

to some other

gospel, resurrection.

(2)

The vein spun from

patience’s distal cavity

exhales,

 

genuflects.

(3)

When you return

from the war,

kindly

 

post this:  to FAILURE,

 

whose gleam

the angels recognize.

 

This

is your birth, a muscle

(4)

the sea

mixes with distance.

G.C. Waldrep’s most recent books are feast gently (Tupelo, 2018), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America; The Earliest Witnesses (Tupelo/Carcanet, 2021); and The Opening Ritual (Tupelo, 2024), one of the New York Times’s best poetry collections of 2024.  Waldrep lives in Lewisburg, Pa., where he teaches at Bucknell University.