What’s worse, energy or ambition?
We used to say sincerity, now we can’t—
the wind not so easy to utter either
when it’s filling up your mouth.
Figure out something edible, a seed
at the source but nothing occurs.
If you write “ironic detachment”
in your orange notebook again
I’m going to throw it into a fire
even if I have to make a fire.
When one gets a handle on blame—
it’s beneficial for the critic to have
a few extra fingers—it allows one
to fabricate more useful than usual
perversions. A man stepped off the train
holding a pale green thing which might
have been a takeout salad or maybe
a lizard filling the cradle of meat
his fingers made. I tried to see
but he was gone—that’s how a lot
of stories end when someone smarter
than you doesn’t like you either.
It’s basically always me in here
but I’m less crucial than the light
that shoots through every window
I walk by and floods me almost with joy.
from They Don’t Kill You Because They’re Hungry, They Kill You Because They’re FullFind it in the library
Copyright © 2014 Mark Bibbins
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.