Chorus
The Argos cement truck
circles back a third time.
I’ve forgotten if the hundred eyes
were housed in one head
or many. These days I care so little
for myth, how witness works.
Now when I catch sight
of myself in windows of Last Resort
I deliberately extend my abdomen,
shine like a buffet
Buddha begging touch. I round out
like a hassock. I believe in God just so
I can revise:
hello Spry Fundus, hello
Winged Stria.
My memory of pain no more
than the memory of having once compared
a good apple to a good orange.
My own eyes, dazzling and compound.
Mornings, I outswim
women half my age. With a featherweight
heart I fold and refold
the layette, dream of kicks
from a fruitless chorus. I need them
behind me. To them I’ve upturned
my alms bowl. Hello Golden Reticulate,
hello Show. I’ve renamed
every leaf, every bereavement.
________________________________
This selection comes from Alicia Rebecca Myers’ chapbook My Seaborgium available now from Brain Mill Press. Purchase your copy here!
Alicia Rebecca Myers is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared recently or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, The American Literary Review, Gulf Coast, jubilat, The Carolina Quarterly, The Fairy Tale Review, and Day One. In February of 2014, she was awarded a residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska City. A graduate of NYU’s MFA Program, she currently teaches at Wells College. You can find her online at aliciarebeccamyers.com.
Ben McClendon is a PhD student in creative writing at the University of Tennessee. He previously studied poetry at Northern Arizona University after teaching high school English for several years. His poems have appeared in Indiana Review, Yemassee, Cæsura, Chariton Review, Redivider, Rattle, and elsewhere. He is currently Assistant Poetry Editor for Grist: The Journal for Writers and a poetry editor for Four Ties Lit Review. Ben lives with his husband in Knoxville.
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