Green Linden Press

[Salve]


There must be a salve for the world
we are so hell bent on ending.

There must be some lichen or weed
we could soak in root sap, deer blood,

wild berry gathered at cliff edge.
There must be a pestle to crush seed

pod and salt dug from ancient sea.
Some thing that keeps sky sky,

water water, so whales know
where to sing, so land knows,

so trees stay, birds stay,
so staying becomes a way of loving.

There is only so much to say.
The air takes the rest.

Somewhere inside you know,
you know if you long, it’s not there,

a child’s head waiting for light.
Not even God wants to live in this wait.

(This poem is from the chapbook Radio Static published by Green Linden Press.)

James Hoch’s books are Miscreants and A Parade of Hands. Last Pawn Shop in New Jersey is due in 2022 from LSU press. His poems have appeared in POETRY, The New Republic, Washington Post, Slate, Chronicle Review of Higher Education, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other magazines, and have been selected for inclusion in Best American Poetry 2019. He has received fellowships from the NEA, Bread Loaf, and Sewanee writers conferences, St. Albans School for Boys, The Frost Place, and Summer Literary Seminars. Currently he is Professor of Creative Writing at Ramapo College of New Jersey and Guest Faculty at Sarah Lawrence College.

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2021