Poetry

Against black matchsticks,
rotted fangs,
plus and minus, sum lines, mathematics, 

She went to Zurich to rescue a man.
She’d made all the necessary maps. 
Paul Klee would’ve painted this woman

We are high performers not normal not just performers but high ones we 
perform things make papers smell like perfume we don’t order things other 

Ink slurs into byssal threads,
split blue caskets of mussels
scapular in ritual archipelago, butter, cream,

The problem is the voices

I can’t get out of my head. On the bridge, the captain’s playing
“Break On Through”; he’s been

Maybe the letter isn’t from a lover the letter is a layoff letter a lay aside letter
a lay into letter maybe the letter says you are an employee of me and I certainly

We passed the baby over the bed, and later we passed tissue,
and her Bible with its onion skin pages, its highlighted lessons
and dog-eared parables she kept handy with bookmarks 

This week’s poem, “God Knows English” by David Caplan, is complemented by a photograph by Noah Rabinowitz. The poem and photo are part of a series by Caplan called “Observances,” which appeared in our Spring 2012 issue on the state of...