Untitled*
In
heaven all the sleeves are long enough.
No one
will bankrupt you for being
Between
jobs. The animals all know you
And wish
you well. It’s considered rude
To even
mention capitalism. The frogs
Are all
in one lovely key, and sometimes
They
write poetry and sing it to the pond.
There’s
a wide idea of what constitutes
Love and
meaning. So few people are
Looking
for answers they turned off
The
internet. No one’s looking for love,
Only at
it. Nobody says “saccharine
Pastoral”
and means it. Here your heart
Feels
like a reed bent parallel to the other
Reeds,
over some generous body of water.
*first
line borrowed from Kristi Bergner
Broken Rectangles
The pain
is maddening but it doesn’t let up. This is the story of ontological novelty.
Like finding a peeled fruit, whole, in your bed. Wait on as
its own opposite. Or a command to keep going. The window of the dream is
closing, closing. No one lifts a finger off their own pulse. I let a flower go
for every day you’re not here. I’m counting days like rabbits in the spring.
The Idea of Purple
Just trying to steal my way
through living
I’d tell you a joke but then
/ we’d both die
I’d like to refuse the pink
light but it won’t
Let me / There’s already too
much sugar
In the bowl / Lay your hands
on my ugly
Shoulders & strum / The
black guitar of
My present-tense fear fr the
future / All its
Ramrod-straight ideals &
its ecological
Disasters / An immortal
fugue has begun
To play for the wounded
among us / An
Infinitely recast majority
in the candlelight
/ Scraping all the dead
flesh off our backs
/ Wandering the highlands
without a clue
Tom Snarsky teaches mathematics at Malden High School in Malden, Massachusetts, USA.
