Poem of the Day
Consecutive Preterite
By Jessica Laser
That summer I learned Biblical Hebrew / with Christian women heaving themselves / toward ministry one brick building at a time.
That summer I learned Biblical Hebrew / with Christian women heaving themselves / toward ministry one brick building at a time.
They're lying on a Mexican blanket,
she's on her back with her knees up
and he leans on one elbow,
I'll never be as handsome as my father,
singing Vivaldi, when he's seventy-five,
beneath gold domes or strolling by the water.
The one resting now on a plant stem
somewhere deep in the vine-hung
interior of South America
At the bus stop a blind man sells colored pencils.
Ballpoint pens, too, at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Ten cents for a pencil, two bits for a pen.
Some men say I've forgotten why I sing,
as if I were a happy, careless thing.
But just my speechless body stayed behind—
Eventually she stayed
with the overflown artery of Ouse
fingering pebbles one at a time two
I envy the cellist with the sculpted barrel
between her knees.
I envy the violinist, the trainer of a mahogany bird
One can't work
by lime light.
A bowl full
right at
one's elbow
Slip is one
law of crash
among dozens.
Going to visit my mother is like starting in on a piece by
Beckett.
You know that sense of sinking through crust,