Reconsider the Misunderstanding of What We See

This earth covered in a forest
of yawn. Mean wind

of a peculiar howl, alto,
rushing. The horizon

spangled with fish leaping
against the brittle curve

of earth. This earth covered,
as said, in a forest

of mirrors shaved thin
by the gaze of water.

So many heads crowned
with curvy punctuation.

Gabriel Welsch is the author of a collection of short stories, Groundscratchers, and four collections of poems: The Four Horsepersons of a Disappointing Apocalypse, The Death of Flying Things, An Eye Fluent in Gray, and Dirt and All Its Dense Labor. His work has appeared widely, in journals including Ploughshares, Southern Review, THRUSH, Harvard Review, Moon City Review, Lake Effect, Missouri Review, as well as on Verse Daily and in Ted Kooser’s column “American Life in Poetry.” Welsch lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his family, and works at Duquesne University.