Triolet on a Line by Billy Collins

by Antonia Clark
The Waters
Honorable Mention, February 2010
Judged by Dorianne Laux and Joseph Millar


How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death.
— from “The First Night”

How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death.
How wordlessly we tremble or embrace
the thought of it, knowing we will give up breath,
language, selfhood in the face of death.
And, even then, I won’t pretend that faith
will save us. This life is all we know of grace.
How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death
How wordlessly we tremble or embrace.