On Losing It All

Having fingers guarantees
nothing, I found out.

It was in a cave near
Sils im Engadin that
I learned this,
the unflagging dark
a rocky womb open
as a way of closing in.

I pinch at the tiny rocks
on the ground for hours,
until going backwards
I become the first body
on a planet too young for this.

A closed fist is a kind of self-
reflection, a promise
of feeling at least something.

Belong self, I have told you before.

---

William Erickson’s somewhat non-traditional path into poetry is marked by a fascination with the surreal and a non-causal logic that that borrows from dream sequence. His poems are often oddly sad but, somehow, sincerely optimistic. William’s work is featured in BlazeVOX Journal, 34th Parallel Mag, GASHER, The Tusculum Review, and numerous other journals. His chapbook Monotonies of the Wildlife (FLP) is currently available for pre-order. William lives in the Portland, Oregon, area with his wife, his rescued bulldog, and his rescued shar pei mix.

[image: Höllgrotten, Baar, Switzerland | Ricardo Gomez Angel]