The Alchemists
The only way it could have ever worked
is if they had transmuted
inner and outer. Led to gold, rose to bee
living diving
thrush to bell. Sad alchemists whose eyes
were locked to
texts they studied, voices bound to snake
leather. If only each had held
the other’s body, as if it were a volume
of incorruptible secrets
that withstood the fire, the frozen river,
the inner loss of hope.
David Capps is a philosophy professor at Western Connecticut State University. He is the author of three chapbooks: Poems from the First Voyage (The Nasiona Press, 2019), A Non-Grecian Non-Urn (Yavanika Press, 2019), and Colossi (Kelsay Books, 2020). He lives in New Haven, CT.
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