The Good News of the Ground

by Heidi Johannesen Poon

selected by Cole Swensen

Global Warming


The candle lit
starts taking off
with utter faith

its old violet sweater
into the sink
and now there's wax

in the elbow of the drain--
to be around in the days
and nights to come

where laughter won't expand
is to understand
the landlord doesn't need this.

* * *

The chair isn't a fool
when it rocks on the porch
in the wind. The fool's inside.

Bit by bit, the world divides.
The storm outside
will always seem

too light to speak of.
The screen door slams--
the brain thinks in the dark.

The human heart so made
to be be working, so that's how
it's finally resting,

over these wide newbearing fields
where all the chairs have been cleared
(the audience near)

and the final version grows.

 
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