I woke up this morning to budgeted time this put aside to read THIS ISA NICE NEIGHBORHOOD by Farid Martuk, a book I love a lot. This is my favorite poem.

(*I apologize. The line breaks wont appear as they should in blogger. But I think the content overcomes this. To see the real, go here)



Anamorphosis

Two shepherd collies lie in the grass
of the children’s outfield
A woman stands between them so tall

their mistress, mistress smokes
She keeps sunset

A slow cloud bank rises over the park
to refract the light through particulate
garbage air,

light honeyed
in the methane

Islanded in the long grass I am drinking a bottle of water
keeping sunset

Warm air trades places with cold air
knocking a plastic bag around
the new leaves of a park tree

I’m a shitty listener—
too many things sound like paper
or a phone ringing

Usually there is plane
traffic above me
but I am allowed to see it
intermittently
by steam trails

My mother has been allowed to grow old—
I visit
drive her
away from her TV
so she can say things before she dies

Today she talked about her rape
he took pictures of her at gunpoint

A long time ago painters
laid out
shadows such that if
you stand in the right place
they coalesce for your eyes
into a skull

So we
learn to look
at anything and recognize death

That’s alright I’ll
do that

but right now I want a bigger
compass to draw the register of planes above me

the woman and her dogs
gone home
the Marlboro in the grass
the plastic bottle in my hand

I want to hear the plastic bag
in the tree
I want to look up
and see that it’s death
and a plastic bag
and a city tree

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