Conjugating
       

            If lovers are
swallowing the nation of each other,
            what haven't they
already swallowed? We are mostly
            bored, boring.
We're mostly more modern than we
            wanted to be. I thought
about this once, as a man bridled a horse
            and a bird flew
into his neck. We have not minded,
            arc not minding,
the problems that time brings. It was
            in Omaha where
I said until you are god again I am god.
            This is when
I learned you are not impressed by me,
            that I am not
impressing or damning, that nothing
            has bloomed enough
for us to eat and be full of it. If the heart is
            a heart or was a heart,
it will continue to be a heart. Time says
            it, the wife is wived,
the husband husbanded and there's nothing
            we can do about it.
When Stein wrote pain soup, she might
            have meant this:
that we are doomed, dooming, dumb.
            That when I promised
you time, I promised nothing but the notion
            of it. What we are
right now is shinery—rough flecks; not light
            but light's potential
to change us into that thing we never were
            before, that we are
not now. So many nations piled up inside us
            both, perhaps one
day we'll understand: why it hurts to be here,
            and there, and then.

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Copyright © 2014 Kimberly Grey All rights reserved
from Black Warrior Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission