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September 28, 2020 Poetry

Proemnal

Michael McKee Green

Proemnal photo

PROEMNAL

1.

On’s on.

Storm in summer so awed.

Storm in summer so the awning.

Gum rubber space slowing
to show me it’s one big skin
sweating and leaking into
all over me.

I don’t mind much.

Threads of tone wash from one mouth
to another mouth in another summer
whether in inheritance
or echo
or elegy.

2.

Light lighting.

Lightning light.

In a cafe
Julian and I were in a cafe
in the summer in the storm.

In a cafe
I’m in a cafe alone.

It’s not fantasy nor phrenzy,
not read nor read
but both boths.

Broth of us—
Julian and I
fantasy and phrenzy,
read and read
is ugly, has no futurity but mold.

3.

How much I love being on the lawn with you is

is is

grass and sprinkler ready to trigger.

Its chopped hum is mindless.

It’s a sprinkler,
it sprinkles.

The ground shifts beneath me
and I’m here
in the mud-color broth of the ground.

4.

In the color of the ground
I rest my color.

CoD waiting room playing from the living room.

It’s then then.

It’s simple really.

Wall between self and self is thinning 
itself invisible

And now’s now now

5.

Julian’s married or something.

His living room makes the same music
or doesn't.

On’s off.

I’m minding.

image: Catherine Sinow


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