A Philatory
***
Can’t pick up right now, sorry.
Haloed by this next sorrow, sorry.
Still nostalgic for now, even
as it slips away naked.
***
Here and here
the Internet will report this
week’s sorry-ass golem lying under
oath, and so what? So sorrow.
I still need a home to
home to
***
Sowing sorr
ow sorr y
so ng
worry wrong
***
All our hair is falling out, and so what? It gets in our art
I mean heart same thing the cramped space
left for Philando Castile to live.
His murdered hands healed, relic-nested.
::
Nurture, harbor, tend:
that’s how the wishes grow
hallowed, misshapen, portentous:
so much more than us.
***
So much love in this
world I want to live
in it twice, let the next
moment’s passing crush
my committed heart doubly.
Is that selfish? Sorry.
***
Demonstrate : a monstrum : a monstrous want
Here, and here, my hope demonstration
I blow my nose, sweep the floors.
The physical remains of my hope demonstration
***
The past just pounded down my door, pointing its dumb rubber
sword at me, accusing me of plagiarizing its pain. So pitiful, I faked scared.
God, I used to be so intimidated by the past.
In this double-edged day, who recognizes it?
***
In the future I imagine
two of me living—here,
and here— practically
a set of wish windows.
One of me is
you.
Paula Cisewski‘s fourth poetry collection, quitter, won Diode Editions’ 2016 Book Prize and her third, The Threatened Everything, was selected for publication in the 2014 Burnside Review Book Contest. Both are newly released as of early 2017. Cisewski is also the author of Ghost Fargo (selected by Franz Wright for the Nightboat Poetry Prize), Upon Arrival (Black Ocean), and a chapbook of lyric prose, Misplaced Sinister (Red Bird Chapbooks).
