Everyone applauds the bravery of the past
Amelia Earhart was
eaten by a giant
crab and digested
just like any other adventure—
some way to die.
some people are just gone
even before they’re gone,
prodded with careless
panic children reserve
for fire. but is there any
difference in desire
and deference?
writing yourself whole
let your body consume
metaphor like everyone
has a body, like you have
had eyes for too long
to learn new tricks; change
the mirror instead. if you find
some body missing do not
report to the authorities, call the
number at your perforated edges
stapled to trees and signposts, do not
present a problem without a solution
because you will get used to it; remember
there is actually no difference between good
and bad things. it is impossible to remember
the others as young men; let your body age
with their memory. time will take shape painlessly
about you no matter how closely you watch the pot.
accept the diagnosis that makes none of this your fault,
accept someone else’s lies as mantra: gratitude and complaint
are not mutually exclusive, hold yourself closer to the vest. do not
conflate skin cells with history, politics and other sciences
pretending I am unimportant, reciting: no ideas but in things.
no mountains but from molehills.
name/brand
on a windy day breaking
those hottest Midwestern months
where most everything is
wishing for death
or winter, a single dried petal
from that little blue flower
with a cute colloquial name,
shrunk beyond its living
weight and crumbled a bit
on its edges, falls
from somewhere that is not
knowable to the backseat of your car
in a park, the kind with trees
and paths but not a path
through the trees, surrounded
by city and city
and suburb and trees and
something catches your eyes
in the sparse canopy, your whole
body follows until one is
captured and catalogued
by a benevolent satellite employed of a science
repeating, “When’s the last time you heard Michael Brown?”
To order copies of EVERYTHING SAVED WILL BE LAST by Isaac Pickell, via Black Lawrence Press, click here
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