It's Tuesday July sun on the brick wall through the grate
the kind of bird that screams and the kind that sings and
the kind that squawks are out there, going. Someone
is camping somewhere. This is the kind of nature
poem where I sit on my couch and eat sprouted bread
and honey off a blue speckled camping plate. Lots
of slamming, the building is falling to med students,
roaches. Soon I will get on the 1 and take it down
to uptown. I'll walk across the park and get adjusted
in those spaces I can't see, where ligament connects
to whatever ligament connects to. Me, joanna penn
cooper, born in a garage, walking straight
to the Upper East Side to get my butt muscles adjusted.
The squawk, the call, the chirpchirpchirp
this is me showing out in New York City.
Thanks, Christine!
ReplyDeleteawesome.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Todd. It was, of course, inspired by the "It's Tuesday" piece on your blog. Intertextual poet-friends of the twenty-first century!
ReplyDeleteI really like this poem, Joanna. I love the image of honey on toast and the ambiguity of going out to get adjusted in spaces where things connect. I know I've said this before, but hear a Whitman sound in much of your poetry of late that appeals to me a lot.
ReplyDeleteThank you, ame! Kind words, indeed.
ReplyDelete