ON THE OCCASION OF THE POET’S SUDDEN DEATH
There are different kinds of dying my heart’s still not right
all night I shake scorpions from the Technicolor bath towel
how do we mourn the dead we didn’t know
truth in its austerity smells like rank sweat
a primal screech in a high up tree this is the world we live in:
send dildos to the cowboy militia in Oregon our heart’s not right
we ache for a less curated banter on this sweetest island
I sing Praise Be into the heater-dry air if I stop singing
the earth will fall into a dog’s mouth its teeth sweatered
with mawed cow parts & black dreams
of blade grass stamped dirt sound of nostril breathing
blue blue sky all of it all of us
a mouth opening in the bed of ages in the marvel bed
in the dank & fleshy sheets we’re a hambone
hanging on a galaxy’s neck nothing changes after we die
except flight velocity & vision of what before
we only imagined everything shines & primes us for shining
for CD Wright
THIS LITTLE ARMY OF JOY
I finally know why everything is awesome.
Shakespeare showed up in the night, just between
cemetery codpiece & emporium balloon
man. I watched clouds thrust northward,
away from the city by a strong hand
that stranded me between pillows & cat.
Cartwheel comes from cart wheel,
& this revelation makes me feel
like God’s daughter. At the child’s birthday
party, I’m surrounded by masked 3-year-olds, hippy
play dough. As one of the players, I’m floored
& trounced upon by petite gremlins.
Death, marriage, divorce, heartbreak:
I’ve already done enough. Give me a koala
mask, let me play pirates in figure 8s
through these rooms. I finally know
why everything is awesome, I finally
see the awesomeness, as when the clouds
run away, & Orion flashes
his teeth, & there’s this shimmering,
this monstrous bellyful of light.
Alexis Orgera is the author of two books, How Like Foreign Objects and Dust Jacket, and several chapbooks. Poems, essays, interviews, and reviews can be found in Another Chicago Magazine, Copper Nickel, Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Forklift Ohio, Green Mountains Review, Gulf Coast, H_ngm_n, The Journal, jubilat, Lumen Magazine, Memorious, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Sixth Finch, Tarpaulin Sky, Typo, and elsewhere. She is co-publisher of the kids’ book press Penny Candy Books with poet Chad Reynolds. Find her at alexisorgera.com.