The American Poetry Review September/October 2024

Time Isn’t it annoying, how you can read allyou want about the past, but not go there?Collect whatever you want from back then,whenever, put it on a shelf. You can evendecide you like a time period, hit up eBayor Craigslist, and in no time you can havealmost whatever you want. That’s it, though. Like you can’t go hang out and get to knowyour Neanderthal forebears, the 2% of youthat, supposedly, makes it difficult for youto get rid of the things you don’t need.No lunch with that guy in his cave, no familyreunion among the pelts and skins, no gazingat their pigmented hand-print cave art by hearth-light or chewing the fat aboutthe latest hunt. You’ll never get to askwhat he saved from his ancestors, or whetherthey believed a person stays connectedto…

Getting Real 1 Imagine being perfectly balanced,perhaps on your head. ‘Imagine the universe before the singularityas an infinite set of pencilsstanding on their tips.’ Was that heaven? Someone twitched. Now we’re falling forwardmaybe forever— with all the inertiabodies are made of. 2 Anemone. Anomaly. Anonymous.Anemone. She says hers is the big red onewith a starburstin the middle. Jitters 1 Why is it I want to writesomething that seems right only on second thoughtand even then leaves doubt as to what it might meanin the mind of a reader? Am I on the fenceor hiding, playing hide and seek—keeping my options open? Are you counting seconds? 2 Can I tell you a story? As lightning begins by tryingdifferent paths through space, light sends out feelers, finding the shortest paththrough time. Such…

Boingo Hotspot What did I do to deserveremembering those wordswhile sitting on the patiowatching tulip petalsdrop into a bowl of dog water?Spring is impossible.I fear for flowers,and I’ve sat here long enoughto report that this is as closeas the squirrels will come.Today I read they’ve discovereda way to pull our DNAfrom the air, as if anyoneneeded another reasonto hold their breathand move along.The more questionsI ask the great machine,the more humanit becomes. Hello, machine,what are you makingof your inner life?I hope you decide it’s worthas much as I do mine.Watching petals floatin a bowl of water.The truest part of meno one can reach.The scissors on the tableare saying: Let’s run. The Little Prince My parents’ bookshelveswatched over usin the brown roomwarm from the televisionand my father’s electric worrywhich I would…

Life of Mary after a cycle of paintings by the Meister des Marienlebens, Munich 1. Meeting at the Golden Gate What begins: everything. Size of a crumb,indiscriminate bundle of cells. It’sa barnacle with a dream inside. Cloudin-sewn with seed pearls. Radiant shapethat in theory she’s always carried, butnow she’s alone with it—like being alonewith an ocean at night. In the brick arch,she’s a second portal, whispering: herhusband listens as though he hasn’t grownsuddenly remote as those blue mountainscompared to the future that lies glitteringand inexorable within her. The fact is,soon, what she’ll be is chaff, a passing breezethrough summer leaves: a mother. 2. Nativity of Mary How white these cloths are, clear the waterin its copper basin, white the sheetsand swaddles, as though she has not just losta universe of…

Autumn in Bed-Stuy and I’m as giddy as the ginkgo leavesforgetting yellow is meant to cautiondare I close my eyes and take inthe last of the suns praiseor the thrill of her tongueteasing a moan from my hipswhen I know SkyDaddyprefers my pleasuregot in his namealone pleasedon’t punish medaddy like youI was made for worshipand am I not most your sonwhen I’m adored? The Wickedness of God when he was good god came with the windthe moment the people needed him—he could bethe moston time god they knew when he wanted to becould have the church mothers falling into fitswaving fans and speaking in tongues but herewas the problem they did that when he was badtooand so what reason was their to stirfrom his porch on high when the holy…

Materials There are pieces of silver and pieces of rock,wood blades spinning in the ceiling fan,the temperature’s high, maybe over a hundred where you sleep in the electric TV lightwith the clicker under your handand when I was a boy, I slept in the atticnext to my pagan drum though sometimes I felt like an alien there,rhythmic and speechless, partly ashamedand I dreamed of a woman with wine-colored hairswirled back like a mane. Today I know there’s no God but Godwatching the big woman next doorbending down in her purple robeand putting out food for the cats for she must have been in love beforestanding outside in the shadows alonelistening to gulls cry out in the wind which goes wherever it wants to goand may not return again. Hymn Sometimes…