Eric Pankey’s poem, “See That My Grave is Swept Clean,” appeared in NER 20.1 (1999):
Words are but an entrance, a door cut deep into cold clay.
I say, A late sky flagged with jade; ice on the pear blossoms.
I say, A thrush of cinnabar in the lily’s throat.
Behind each assertion, each gambit, I could place a question mark.