I am sorry I knocked over your Waterford ice bucket.
I get so nervous when you make me sing.
What with the wasp nest swelling on the ceiling.
What with the hatchet whispering on the wall.
I know these things because I’m hungry:
dawn comes in like a bow
pulled across the strings
of a styrofoam cello, the river
glitches and pixelates, the clouds
unfurl like a map of Soviet Georgia,
and the trees bend
under the weight of their names.
Earth is what I say it is.
Let me just have this one thing.
Call the city a candle and watch
wax streak the office buildings.
Call the city a rabid animal
and watch the cops circle you in.
I was told throw your body hard
at a purpose, but I found only
other bodies: a divot in the mattress,
a name the muscles of my mouth
were sculpted to say.
Eliza with your bottle of wine.
Eliza with your pocket mirror.
Inebriate me.
Cast my hands in lead.
Learn my imperial slang.
Reading Note:
I am currently reading Kaveh Akbar's MARTYR! and Tomaz Salamun's The Blue Tower. Pretty Tripwire by Alessandra Lynch, Ransack and Dance by Chris Forhan, Facts for Visitors by Shrikanth Reddy, The Babies by Sabrina Orah Mark, When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip, Door in the Mountain by Jean Valentine, The Feel Trio by Fred Moten, The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle, Shroud of the Gnome by James Tate, It is Daylight by Arda Collins, and F by Franz Wright are books that buoy me day to day.
Fall Poetry Album Links:
Table of Contents * Kaitlyn Airy * Stephen Danos * Haley Joy Harris * Tommy O'Rourke * Eric Pankey * Max Schliecher * Ken Walker
