Martin Lammon has recently completed a new collection of poems, All Souls, featuring poems previously published in The Atlanta Review, Chelsea, The Gettysburg Review, Mid-American Review, among other journals, and most recently in Hotel Amerika, Margie Review, and The Southern Review. His poem "Sesitina Qué Triste" is part of that collection. He has also recently finished a memoir about living in Costa Rica, and several earlier versions of chapters from that book were previously published in such journals as Black Warrior Review, The Chattahoochee Review, and The Iowa Review. Zone 3 published “The Body Electric,” which was among the “Notable Essays of 2008,” selected by Robert Atwan and listed in The Best American Essays 2009 anthology. Lammon teaches at Georgia College & State University, where he holds the Fuller E. Callaway/Flannery O'Connor Chair in Creative Writing, directs the MFA Program there, and edits the journal Arts & Letters.

---------

 

 

 

Say   la piedra.

What pity

In a stone? Loss,

Perhaps, no más,

No menos. Squint, you miss

 

Say   la luz.

Say   la piedra.

In this language, pity

Abounds, and loss

Is common. We chant una más

As if we might miss

 

The saddest song, or miss

So small, una piedra

So smooth, we will pity

Each other as if such loss

Were triste. Qué más,

Y mucho menos. I miss

Nuance, say   luz,

Mean   la raza, say   piedra,

Mean   pebble. A pity,

This meaning I’ve lost.

 

We live with loss

Want what we miss

Most. At night, la luz;

In flight, la piedra,

Tierra firma. Want pity

 

When we have no pity.

In this milagro of language, loss

Lingers on the tongue, más

O menos, and I miss

En la mañana. I say   piedra

 

As if I’d said   pity. Say   luz

As if I’d said   loss. Only a word, una piedra,

Such sad syllables, what I miss la más.