Keegan Lester
the topography of a self-portrait as the other self
That soon pears
would taste like pears again,
a new country to sleep in
was all we could hope for.
We considered we were both dying.
A drape pretending
in a window across Broadway.
He heard ghosts speaking
in passing footsteps.
I watched him smoke cigarettes
to ash, the trees shiver, the marble
buildings straight.
I pealed clementines.
I ate each crescent.
What started as a whisper
filled the trees in place of pine needles.
Another person’s heart wasn’t his.
In his poem I watched two girls
make their way
past the three of us
and my hands weren’t mine.
Edith sings because she thinks no one
can hear her. He could not
stop hearing her. The amount of honey
produced in the life of a honeybee
made him heartsick too.
He was a native of nowhere.
If it were to rain
it would have been an excuse to go dancing.
He used the word nude
because it was correct.
He knew a rumor was there,
because what else would fit in the space?
He named the thing a girl’s hands were doing:
finching. That, that itself
is a kind of entropy.
He knew only how to unfold maps.
He called Edith’s songs:
neurosis of the pulmonary artery.
A heart removed from the brain would try
to pump before dying, but a brain removed
from the heart would burn out quiet
as a distant constellation.
He knew by some accounts
Native Americans mistook the sails
of genocidal explorers, for clouds.
He knew aboutness is the primitive language
for doing, the sky was inky and the moon
to be 250,000 miles away. The younger poet knew
how the curtains moved in her window
when no one was there
to move them.
That soon pears
would taste like pears again,
a new country to sleep in
was all we could hope for.
We considered we were both dying.
A drape pretending
in a window across Broadway.
He heard ghosts speaking
in passing footsteps.
I watched him smoke cigarettes
to ash, the trees shiver, the marble
buildings straight.
I pealed clementines.
I ate each crescent.
What started as a whisper
filled the trees in place of pine needles.
Another person’s heart wasn’t his.
In his poem I watched two girls
make their way
past the three of us
and my hands weren’t mine.
Edith sings because she thinks no one
can hear her. He could not
stop hearing her. The amount of honey
produced in the life of a honeybee
made him heartsick too.
He was a native of nowhere.
If it were to rain
it would have been an excuse to go dancing.
He used the word nude
because it was correct.
He knew a rumor was there,
because what else would fit in the space?
He named the thing a girl’s hands were doing:
finching. That, that itself
is a kind of entropy.
He knew only how to unfold maps.
He called Edith’s songs:
neurosis of the pulmonary artery.
A heart removed from the brain would try
to pump before dying, but a brain removed
from the heart would burn out quiet
as a distant constellation.
He knew by some accounts
Native Americans mistook the sails
of genocidal explorers, for clouds.
He knew aboutness is the primitive language
for doing, the sky was inky and the moon
to be 250,000 miles away. The younger poet knew
how the curtains moved in her window
when no one was there
to move them.
the poem wherein I write and rewrite and rewrite pertaining to a gathering on Balboa Island
a bag concealing the face of the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen,
prior to guillotine
a bag concealing the oklahoma border in early morning where everything is
a gas station fist of beef jerky and the flags of the living invisible are everywhere
a bag concealing mixed cds you’ve still not owned up to making
a bag concealing the snowy himalayas, a boar and a yeti
a bag concealing a cow’s heart
a bag concealing the butcher who concealed the cow’s heart in the previous line
a bag misquoting all the way back to the asphalt path, where oranges and whitman
and what lies in a ditch wants to
a bag concealing a barn storming, drips of lightning from the rod and what you can imagine
when you see the words marmalade and egregious followed by my name is:
on the sticker over your heart
a bag concealing the turtle that held the world on its shell, whose pattern disproved the gravity
of all things. what do I know
out here where native americans sleep beneath american blankets
a bag concealing the diplomacy of clicks and terrestrial syllables in space in the bag concealing a
hand breaking against hemingway’s jaw--
a bag for cigarettes and sunflower seeds.
**
(because I can’t quite get to it…
(because it’s harder and harder to be human these days…
**
the thing about dreaming of death in a hospital,
the where you go after
the syntax of harmless sparks
the what can’t be stolen part taking
itself in plain view of
the failure of language, is:
**
a bag that’s run out of its tricks.
a floating vessel bag rogue in the sky tonight, concealing out here
where no heroes exist, where heroes hang from their nylon tights all the time.
a bag concealing the face of the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen,
prior to guillotine
a bag concealing the oklahoma border in early morning where everything is
a gas station fist of beef jerky and the flags of the living invisible are everywhere
a bag concealing mixed cds you’ve still not owned up to making
a bag concealing the snowy himalayas, a boar and a yeti
a bag concealing a cow’s heart
a bag concealing the butcher who concealed the cow’s heart in the previous line
a bag misquoting all the way back to the asphalt path, where oranges and whitman
and what lies in a ditch wants to
a bag concealing a barn storming, drips of lightning from the rod and what you can imagine
when you see the words marmalade and egregious followed by my name is:
on the sticker over your heart
a bag concealing the turtle that held the world on its shell, whose pattern disproved the gravity
of all things. what do I know
out here where native americans sleep beneath american blankets
a bag concealing the diplomacy of clicks and terrestrial syllables in space in the bag concealing a
hand breaking against hemingway’s jaw--
a bag for cigarettes and sunflower seeds.
**
(because I can’t quite get to it…
(because it’s harder and harder to be human these days…
**
the thing about dreaming of death in a hospital,
the where you go after
the syntax of harmless sparks
the what can’t be stolen part taking
itself in plain view of
the failure of language, is:
**
a bag that’s run out of its tricks.
a floating vessel bag rogue in the sky tonight, concealing out here
where no heroes exist, where heroes hang from their nylon tights all the time.
Keegan Lester is the founding editor of the journal Souvenir. His work has been published in or is forthcoming from: CutBank, Sixth Finch, Ilk Journal, Phantom Limb, Leveler, The Journal, The Barn Owl Review, and Atlas Review among others. If you so dare, you can listen to him read poems at Yes, Poetry’s youtube channel. He is a graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program. He swims in pools daily-- sometimes legally, sometimes less legally. For a good time, follow him on twitter @keeganmlester.
