when the one you thought, finally, wouldn't, does, - Marty McConnell

where do you go? the hole in your hands

keeps getting bigger. first a pencil falls through.

then your teacup, then entire bodies

like light, like you’re made of nothing stronger

than tissue, than sugar heated and spread

to look like glass. not the real thing. not you.

your atoms sit so far apart, your lovers

walk right through. one might say, over

the top of you. but no need for that, when you

can bend around their many departures, the most

porous door. she came back. they always

come back. why not. you are not a creature

of consequences. one way to survive a fall

is to believe very strongly that you

do not have bones. another

is to watch the hole in your body grow

until you are nothing but hole, and who

doesn’t love a hole. you’re the great circle

they can write their lives inside, a flat

unused womb they can crawl into. in this

way, you are useful. this way, you can sleep

in the house that raised you.

Witchgrass - Louise Glück

Something

comes into the world unwelcome

calling disorder, disorder—

If you hate me so much

don’t bother to give me

a name: do you need

one more slur

in your language, another

way to blame

one tribe for everything—

as we both know,

if you worship

one god, you only need

one enemy—

I’m not the enemy.

Only a ruse to ignore

what you see happening

right here in this bed,

a little paradigm

of failure. One of your precious flowers

dies here almost every day

and you can’t rest until

you attack the cause, meaning

whatever is left, whatever

happens to be sturdier

than your personal passion—

It was not meant

to last forever in the real world.

But why admit that, when you can go on

doing what you always do,

mourning and laying blame,

always the two together.

I don’t need your praise

to survive. I was here first,

before you were here, before

you ever planted a garden.

And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon

are left, and the sea, and the wide field.

I will constitute the field.