April 26: For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut
Martha
For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut
Hanif Abdurraqib
Darlings, if your owners say you are / not usually like this / then I must take them / at their word / I am like you / not crazy about that which towers before me / particularly the buildings here / and the people inside / who look at my name / and make noises / that seem like growling / my small and eager darlings / what it must be like / to have the sound for love / and the sound for fear / be a matter of pitch / I am afraid to touch / anyone who might stay / long enough to make leaving / an echo / there is a difference / between burying a thing you love / for the sake of returning / and leaving a fresh absence / in a city’s dirt / looking for a mercy / left by someone / who came before you / I am saying that I / too / am at a loss for language / can’t beg myself / a doorway / out of anyone / I am not usually like this either / I must apologize again for how adulthood has rendered me / us, really
/ I know you all forget the touch / of someone who loves you / in two minutes / and I arrive to you / a constellation of shadows / once hands / listen darlings / there is a sky / to be pulled down / into our bowls / there is a sweetness for us / to push our faces into / I promise / I will not beg for you to stay this time / I will leave you to your wild galloping / I am sorry / to hold you again / for so long / I am in the mood / to be forgotten.
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More Hanif Abdurraqib:
» I Would Ask You To Reconsider The Idea That Things Are As Bad As They’ve Ever Been
» When I Say That Loving Me Is Kind Of Like Being A Chicago Bulls Fan
» If Life Is As Short As Our Ancestors Insist It Is, Why Isn’t Everything I Want Already At My Feet
Today in:
2022: Demeter, Midwinter, Mairead Small Staid
2021: from A Pillow Book, Suzanne Buffam
2020: Letter to My Great, Great Grandchild, J.P. Grasser
2019: After the First Child, the Second, Mary Austin Speaker
2018: A New Lifestyle, James Tate
2017: Anchorage, Joy Harjo
2016: Poem to First Love, Matthew Yeager
2015: Ode to the Reel Mower, Jim Daniels
2014: So Much Happiness, Naomi Shihab Nye
2013: Habitation, Margaret Atwood
2012: About Marriage, Denise Levertov
2011: In Praise of My Bed, Meredith Holmes
2010: Black Swan, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2009: In Me as the Swans, Leslie Williams
2008: Gnosticism V, Anne Carson
2007: American Names, Stephen Vincent Benet
2006: since feeling is first, e.e. cummings
2005: The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats