Issue One - Amy Durant
Pole Star
You castigate me
for not knowing where Elmira is.
I can barely find my kitchen,
and that’s on a good morning;
but I can always find you, I say.
That’s enough for me. I am so often lost
because I am orbiting you,
waiting for you to lead me home.
Illusions
For JF
Ah, you're living the unexamined life,
you said, your eyes a bright blue bloom
in the center of your otherwise unremarkable face;
little do you know how often I examine this
very moment. I turn it over
in my hands, warm it, shake it to see the glitter
fall tawdry over the Statue of Liberty
and the negative space of the Towers;
I worry it, toss it overhead to see it fall in a heap at my feet,
a childhood doll with one eye gone. I am
casting the bones, looking for portents
in the chrome lining, the money in my hand,
the scent of leather,
something, anything, a warning, a prediction, an affliction.
It is time for the roaring, ripping, snarling birth of the truth.