Whisper me a few lies, god, beautiful and familiar lies.
Try to shoot the fireworks out of the sky
With full grown tender things called souls.
Sing low, sing high, sing never come back here again.
With the light behind us—our darks divided falling to the floor,
Singing O, this sack of water, swaying on its hook of bone
While the body says simply, Stay.
But the arrow groped on toward its mark
Into an almost invisible earth. I inhale, exhale, move on
The way a painter enters a studio: / to spill.
How absent the self is. How picked of words. How near at hand.
We tread upon forgetting. Truth be told.
No one gets to keep the face they came here with.
Do come admire the trees.
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Note: This cento is created from the last lines of poems in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century, edited by Michael Dumanis and Cate Marvin. These fourteen lines are by the following poets: C. Dale Young; Monica Youn; Olena Kalytiak Davis; Carrie St. George Comer; Pimone Triplett; Dana Levin; Paisley Rekdal; Joel Brouwer; Richard Blanco; Tracy K. Smith; James Kimbrell; Natasha Trethewey; Julianne Buchsbaum; and Matthea Harvey.
The poem takes inspiration for its title from Richard Blanco’s poem, “How It Begins | How It Ends,” also included in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.
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Nancy Flynn grew up on the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania, spent many years on a downtown creek in Ithaca, New York, and now lives near the mighty Columbia in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has received an Oregon Literary Fellowship and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Recent publications include the poetry collection, Every Door Recklessly Ajar. Her website is www.nancyflynn.com.
© 2025, Nancy Flynn
Halfway Down the Stairs 