Apples Are No Longer American. Nor Traffic.

The gnats swarm
to resemble smoke

ideally—safe
as a breath.

The sawed-off part of change:
the story made up to explain it.

The luck of the fire.
The gnats that saw.

If I forget myself, there
can be chronology: first

I was afraid of smoke,
then resemblance,

then I resembled
something else.

Copyright © 2009 Jennifer Kronovet All rights reserved
from Awayward
BOA Editions, Ltd
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission