ISSUE 9

Ask if it needs to be in all caps

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HARK

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All day we speak well of breaking—
brown dogs lap backwater, joyfreaks,
we read about autofictive asphyxiation
and a soaring, blue tongue that splits
a sky somewhere, a headache from some
beyond where the hounds hunt on Hunt
Club, hounds rushing to a hound
that has opened, or found a line.
I hear you say the government should
be like a pimp or a good mother, they
are one in the same, like how we’ve watched
ourselves live different skins and bodies–
lying on a couch at the Cooper’s estate
on Fairview, we start a fire in the hearth
in the kitchen and drink cold champagne.
All day the lives of others smoke us out,
and we listen at no cost. Hark in the context
of a fox chase means both please be
quiet and listen, and that when a line
is found or has opened, hounds rush
hounds out. Hark in the context of light
means hiring anyone but your ex-husband
to be your handyman, when you discover
the disparate temperatures of the upstairs
closet have made mold in the hot attic.
Hark, you say, because commas are like tears.
Hark in the context of purpose means we
entertain the tornado that is the democracy index,
hark! You say soon there will be a new way to vote
and we believe everything you say but we shouldn’t.
 

Hark in the context of all means,

please be quiet and listen:
we left the city in impeccable timing.
we got to witness the cotton moon comma
the mountain, the cars pushing gravel around
all night—someone came, someone soon is leaving,
and when we walk outside in the morning,
we can hear the howling dogs; the foxes dew claws
sharpening the earth, the Black Caps’ song
with wings and no words

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