From “Of Marks & Lacks” (I.) 

I.) amid the weeks[ ]isolation,[
with my boys: hurtling[ 
]downhill[
creek water, the younger in pursuit of the older—[ 
]the older who knows[
]he must be 
caught,[ ]a defense 
] 
] 
graceful[ ]all the starkness[ 
]reflecting[ 
sun[ ]a contrast[ ]ungreen 
]coming into leaf.[ 
all day[ ]the boys indoors,[ ]on letters and
numbers[ ]late afternoon[ ]behind the 
]fence, we’ll throw a soft-hearted baseball[ 
]build forts in the friable leftovers of last summer’s
sandbox, late afternoon when the sun will slant into our hillside
windows at its usual acute angles[ 
]i have not told them how[ 
many are dead[ ]when the older asked[ 
]faster than they should down the gorge[ 
]over time, into the bedrock marble.[ 
]the end of our walk,[ 
]i stop before i reach them and watch[ 
]under an arch, dogleg right, and flow[ 
]i’ve seen where this creek spills[ 
]just north of the station[ 
]how it wends from here to there, i’m not certain, and
today i wonder if[ 
] 

IAIN HALEY POLLOCK

A 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry, Iain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, Spit Back a Boy (2011), Ghost, Like a Place (2018), and the forthcoming All the Possible Bodies (Alice James, September 2025). He directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York.