08 Aug Thomas J. Snarsky
Mitre In Three Scenes
I.
The vestal virgins yawn in agate.
My life decisions have felt theoretical
For a long time, martyred as they are
By the dizzy moon.
II.
Historians,
The only honest people we have
Left, scour the Earth hoping to find
The hidden toenail of the mind.
III.
This recipe calls for silence,
Warmth, and the kind of tomatoes
You only see on television: blister
Red, fresh as an argument.
Poem In Which Quentin Meillassoux Has A Beautiful Dream Of Total Silence And Drools A Little On His Favorite Pillow (The One With The Green Stars On It That Smells Like Lavender)
I’m looking for a
Word
Like “speculation”
But for listening
Something immemorially old
But still technology
To flow “through the ears
From an alien stream”
To calm by receiving and
Recoiling in equal measure
To be semelfactive but servile
In the fever of isotopes
How long until
I have to sandblast this word
Off the guardrails and
Swingsets and rivulets
Until I give it to someone from
Whom I will not get it back
Not theft only
A forgetful aperture a
Specter of pauses
Held in kind by the presence
Of the victim
Tom Snarsky is a Noyce Teaching Fellow at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, USA. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in H_NGM_N, Fur-Lined Ghettos, M58, aglimpseof, and elsewhere. He tweets @TomSnarsky and posts work occasionally at https://quarrellary.wordpress.com. He lives in Braintree, Massachusetts.
