Mary G. Wilson

 


Grain

 

1.

Former dearest, I am easy to trap
and to explode.
Doves collect the splinters
eagles the doves
photographs the eagles
and the windhover works hard
in a small way
to stay good where it’s vibrating—
a twitch in the wing—
you know, stirred up.
The butterflies are pornographic.
I dare not look at my phone.
And the sun is a violence today
isn’t it—the eclipse really
almost not happening.

 

2.

When the world was young
I offended you in a poem
in the east-coast summer of the tar fumes
having, with the storm-fast leaves
the hubris to think I could.
And to measure my pulse
this weird contraption
as if the DOI or FDA
spelled us out in corn stalks
holding hands with the other corn.
That’s how pastoral it got.
The solar eclipse is less than one
percent at these coordinates.
I forget how it works
and will spend the day deciding
should I google it later
with the butterflies, who
are so much to be watched
in areal movement. We
I mean I, dare not check
our phones / my phone.

 

 


Mary G. Wilson is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Her poems have been appeared in Coconut, Everyday Genius, Anomalous, Macaroni Necklace, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook Not Yet (Projective Industries, 2019).


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