share


Two Poems

I approach a purchase

adore my children—
back away—
that they revere ugliness

the rainbow bag
that holds a smaller
rainbow bag

I just forgot! (isn’t
that a scream)
to stand outside

the vault of apt

comparison.

I am come

to sell you my farm.

You cautiously open
your wallet. You

are almost ready to begin
spending your money.

Vivid lightning
illegible handwriting

strong and locally severe

thunderstorms. I’m always coming
forth in the evening

expecting everything to be
so elegant. Fallacy

of inner beauty meets
fallacy of transparency.

Most of the time I do understand
exactly what someone is talking about

but this time she really was talking size—‘small’
—when I thought she was talking miles per gallon

given the context:
culture in decline.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is the author of three books of poems: Manderley, Figment, and The King. She is also the author of a novel, The Beginners. A founding editor of Fence, a literary journal, and Fence Books, and of The Constant Critic, she is a fellow at the New York State Writers Institute at the University of Albany, in the US, and lives in a small village called Athens, on the Hudson River. She is at work on a new book of poems called One Morning—.

READ NEXT

fiction

January 2017

Oh You

Keller Easterling

fiction

January 2017

You won’t be able to do it. It is a call, and it is something you only know how...

Interview

May 2017

Interview with Hari Kunzru

Michael Barron

Interview

May 2017

In the summer of 2008, the English novelist Hari Kunzru left London for New York City after accepting a fellowship at...

fiction

June 2017

Ferocity

Nicola Lagioia

TR. Antony Shugaar

fiction

June 2017

A pale three-quarter moon lit up the state highway at two in the morning. The road connected the province...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required