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Polaroid Ode

O four cornered room

in which we tuck the ever-

developing light of our warm

bodies. O snapshot, O ether

-ized flash of childhood—swarm

of chemicals murmuring together

to form empty sky, exposing

day’s blue dissolve from blue.

O bad 70’s plaid sofas

& pearl snapshirts, costumes

fading like Fisher-Price cars

on washed out lawns. O moon

boots without stars.

O family re-gathering as light-

seep, as grief. O ablation

& emulsion & actual moon—

you day-lurker, you—

balloon I imagine deflating

above our duplex—why the resistance?

Tell me who was in our living room

to capture this instant, whose hand

was shaking us into existence.

from Little Envelope of Earth ConditionsFind more by Cori A. Winrock at the library

Copyright © 2020 Cori A. Winrock
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Alice James Books.

Published in Cori A. Winrock Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this (publication, website, exhibit, etc.) do not necessarily represent those of the Idaho Humanities Council or the National Endowment for the Humanities.