Poetry

You know I’m actually not who I appeared to be
kidding. I’m actually not sure this was my idea
of a good time, not sure what’s exactly what
in the glass elevator whose bellied window
swerves your face away from your face.
I’m actually not sure...

The man used to walk four miles a day, 
two hours at first, less as he got stronger 
and thinner, to defy the sense of rules that dictates 
higher challenges as the ability climbs. Rebel 
mind in a rebel body. Not even Plato’s 

The squirrels deny themselves from front and back 
and only word into view from the sides when 
their outline rejects the coup of geometry. 
From the south we delight in the polar symmetry 
of their foggy tails cupped by rounded hinds. 

1. Annie Edson Taylor (1901)

Don’t hate me because I sent the cat first.
Darling, desperate times require—
well, they require.
I told the little girl who owned the cat 
I’d buy her a new one.

the world is made perfect why not rebuild here lies the water made of motion same day different peace is a matter of time

You bought yourself a low-cost house
  for only forty thou’.
Then lost it in a city fire;
  they burn so often now.

It’s normal to do it alone, the feint-and-jab
           of forgetting. I believe in only what I can recite 

from memory, like the ninety-nine names
           for thirst: soft-hell, root-torn-from-soil, rain-

i.m. Greg Greger (1923–2015)

I. West of Chekhov

A month since Father died. Back in our old house, 
sisters, where were we? Desert of childhood, 
      great preserver, 

for you we opened another closet.
Father the farm boy––what didn’t he...

Africanus has a million bucks, 
and still he wants and wants and wants. 

Do I have to talk about fear? 
So much has already been said 
about hidden spiders, compass needles
lodged in the soft of an eye.