Mennonite Poetry: Elmer Wiens: Players ("Ted and Sylvia")

Players ("Ted and Sylvia")

The copious books of poems read academically
by students, feeding frenzy in a tenure run:
fish — gray-brown uprising; flies —
your love squeezed amid thin pages, pages
pressed tight, pressed insects and nymphs dried flat,
bits of twine, wool and wax; your love
delighted. Then
abandoned. Who was the fisher? Who the bear to be hunted?
How the new fish swam behind the old fish at the suitable distance.

Podcast: Players ("Ted and Sylvia"

Adapted from:
Graham, Jorie. "Prayer ("From Behind Trees")." New Yorker. 29 Jan. 2001: 80.
Graham, Jorie. "Prayer ("From Behind Trees")." Never. New York: HarperCollins, 2002: 51.