The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: (aviary) by Genevieve Kaplan

This selection, chosen by Guest Curator Callista Buchen, is from (aviary) by Genevieve Kaplan, released by Velize Books in 2020.

Wall-climber, ducker-underer

today does not reveal any difference, any motive
in the afternoon, the sparking
of a plan, we call to complain, we push
our faces through, we sit in the crest
of sunlight, we hold on to the fix in the air, we listen
for it

I’m all too close to stopping to listen

the hush beyond the fence
it’s full of webs
it’s a voice, after all
there’s a body there. there’s
the thing I want, the there, there. you
hear it too, you’ve got a broom. you claim
you’ll take care of it, cricket
in your hand, bird on your shoulder, a regular
man, a tall solid man. and I know
it’s yours, too

Genevieve Kaplan is the author of (aviary) (Veliz Books, 2020), In the ice house (Red Hen Press, 2011), and four chapbooks, most recently I exit the hallway and turn right (above/ground, 2020), an anti-ode to office work. Her recent poems can be found in Posit, Puerto Del Sol, ethel, can we have our ball back?, and elsewhere. She lives in southern California where she edits the Toad Press International chapbook series, publishing contemporary translations of poetry and prose.

Callista Buchen is the author of the full-length collection Look Look Look (Black Lawrence Press, 2019), and the chapbooks The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press, 2015) and Double-Mouthed (dancing girl press, 2016). Her work appears in Harpur Palate, Puerto del Sol, Fourteen Hills, and many other journals. She is the winner of the DIAGRAM’s essay contest and the C.D Wright conference’s Emerging Writer award, and is the founder of the Carlson-Stauffer Reading Series at Franklin College.