Widowmaker
I am widow I am widowed orange hourglass and all: empty cupboard bent house- hold vernacular every sundry bare and particular thing: plain cardboard wicked wicked and urgent urgent for the noose and to be plain dead: dead as a door will you will you marry marry me again and will you when I’m gone this time the one that’s burnt toast with butter fuck you it’s my turn—me all terrific and two dollars short three days too soon: too soon—day of— meet and greet beneath the big top unbuttoned under the bleachers revival requires a big tent send money send mercy I’m a whatchucallit fell from the sky mercy mercy full of sky sky of our father big fathersome sky and wisdom of all old how do you like being dead ageless as a stopped doorway nailed as flagrant as pleasant what fragrant peasant hips what wound in what side credulous fever imagination who melts baths ice cold by the gallon bucket kick the gallon merry turnbuckle to all and to you and to me and neither of us free— weightless: weightless and dried on the windowsill as a dead bug gets: gerrymandered and widow- wise make me make me as well as you please.
Wow, so many lines I highlighted to put in the comments and [comment] on but then I kept re-copying new things to my clipboard. This poem encapsulates so much circling that it’s practically a sphere. Sonically, anaphorically, conceptually (in that order, punctuated below with AS WELL AS):
"nailed/as flagrant as pleasant what/fragrant peasant hips/what wound in what side"
Like DAMN given that you do a syncopated subtraction (flagrant—>fragrant, pleasant—>peasant) (and YES flagrant to fragrant is a subtraction; iirc l—>r is taking a liquid and moving it to another liquid (see:phonetic classifications), which just makes for a mass of water, and in my mind that fucking counts) AS WELL AS anaphora ("what" "what" "what" —im calling it anaphora bc wtf is a line) AS WELL AS "nail—> side." Three strikes, (we’re) out.
This is gorgeous. Also. Have you ever played with pantoums? This sort of circling is exactly what that form is made for, just on a line level rather than word.
Perhaps my new favorite!