Julia Cohen
three poems
**
Black Box #1
By the method of shake
decipher the inside. Break
it, you buy it. I excuse
the hairline fracture as
potential confetti. In vague
terms The Aging Process. In
vague terms I will remain
alone not lonely. I have not
forgone my genus species
merely resting, biding my
time. If I was a narwhal you
could touch my tusk, my
horn, my pointer finger, my
best foot forward. Unbox.
**
Not Any Replica
Peer and crane to see anything at all
and more often what happens is outside our field
The cheerful country weekend rolls by unnoticed
This piece of the same country smearing and growing
We swear inside the hut is better than a hundred torches
The bog is nearly dry and soon will be able to support our tracks
In one unbearable version a variety of poison flowers band together next to the path
Unready to remove our beards and fight we take the other account
Any replica of movement by the original is just persistence
So look and move at the same pace to catapult outside the field
We open the package of regrettables and quickly wrap them in sheets to soak
Come up with the dark bottle and a box of matches
We roll the sheets down the path of a hundred torches
so onlookers gawk and murmur over a choice they may make
It is not a favor this favor of looking
We drop the request into the bog
**
Hawaiian Shirts
Everyone is wearing Hawaiian shirts today so let’s watch someone sneeze & fall down from it I took out knives last night when I was drunk nobody liked the pose I pitched
We should take photos of ourselves eating cake on the curb crumbfaced & hopeful to counteract mistaking whiskey for water this morning & sputtering like spigots on the neighbor’s deadbeat lawn
Everything is always spilling & then one sticks & it’s great but starts to itch & we pluck it off
I smoke too many cigarettes & speak only English my stomach is a truck & I can’t find where I hid the bed but you still ask me are you good with your hands I mean can you fold things I mean can you touch my neck & call it home
Give me what I want to hear eavesdropper eavesdropper like the younger brother you must have been
Back by the meat section janitors are playing Black Sabbath I try to steal lobsters & almost get caught my shirt is greasy but my hair is clean
**
return to sawbuck 1.2
**
Julia Cohen is the co-editor of Saltgrass, a new print and on-line journal and the Managing Editor of Nightboat Books. Her chapbook, "If Fire, Arrival" is out with horse less press and her poems are published or forthcoming in the Mississippi Review online, the Adirondack Review online, Coconut, Absent, Cannibal and Spinning Jenny amongst others. She lives in Brooklyn and come visit her blog www.onthemessiersideofneat.blogspot.com .
**
Black Box #1
By the method of shake
decipher the inside. Break
it, you buy it. I excuse
the hairline fracture as
potential confetti. In vague
terms The Aging Process. In
vague terms I will remain
alone not lonely. I have not
forgone my genus species
merely resting, biding my
time. If I was a narwhal you
could touch my tusk, my
horn, my pointer finger, my
best foot forward. Unbox.
**
Not Any Replica
Peer and crane to see anything at all
and more often what happens is outside our field
The cheerful country weekend rolls by unnoticed
This piece of the same country smearing and growing
We swear inside the hut is better than a hundred torches
The bog is nearly dry and soon will be able to support our tracks
In one unbearable version a variety of poison flowers band together next to the path
Unready to remove our beards and fight we take the other account
Any replica of movement by the original is just persistence
So look and move at the same pace to catapult outside the field
We open the package of regrettables and quickly wrap them in sheets to soak
Come up with the dark bottle and a box of matches
We roll the sheets down the path of a hundred torches
so onlookers gawk and murmur over a choice they may make
It is not a favor this favor of looking
We drop the request into the bog
**
Hawaiian Shirts
Everyone is wearing Hawaiian shirts today so let’s watch someone sneeze & fall down from it I took out knives last night when I was drunk nobody liked the pose I pitched
We should take photos of ourselves eating cake on the curb crumbfaced & hopeful to counteract mistaking whiskey for water this morning & sputtering like spigots on the neighbor’s deadbeat lawn
Everything is always spilling & then one sticks & it’s great but starts to itch & we pluck it off
I smoke too many cigarettes & speak only English my stomach is a truck & I can’t find where I hid the bed but you still ask me are you good with your hands I mean can you fold things I mean can you touch my neck & call it home
Give me what I want to hear eavesdropper eavesdropper like the younger brother you must have been
Back by the meat section janitors are playing Black Sabbath I try to steal lobsters & almost get caught my shirt is greasy but my hair is clean
**
return to sawbuck 1.2
**
Julia Cohen is the co-editor of Saltgrass, a new print and on-line journal and the Managing Editor of Nightboat Books. Her chapbook, "If Fire, Arrival" is out with horse less press and her poems are published or forthcoming in the Mississippi Review online, the Adirondack Review online, Coconut, Absent, Cannibal and Spinning Jenny amongst others. She lives in Brooklyn and come visit her blog www.onthemessiersideofneat
