Poem for April 1
Kicking off this experiment with a poem a day for National Poetry Month.
Today’s poem is part of a special launch schedule during National Poetry Month from April 1—30, 2024. I’ll be posting a new poem daily for 30 days, which will be sent out to all subscribers as a summary on April 30 and otherwise can be viewed for free in the archives here. Thank you for being here!
“AFTERSHOCK”
My preoccupation with apocalypses
dances around dewy skincare, interest rates, news of
death upon rubble upon a big gaping void.
On the screen I can play pretend
watch Julia Roberts freak out then
binge-watch a fictional anarchist’s dream
but when the credits roll I’m right back
in the insulated aftermath, walls plush and pink
fractal of the falling sky outside
a rose-coloured violence popping off like
every delicate matter at the edge of its patience.
Not all wounds bleed,
I gander there’s an itty bitty one in me,
pretty coagulated into shame and prisms.
And all the flowers, rows on rows,
twist their necks trying to catch
the last warm whiff of the sun.
They go too far, imitating art
imitating life. I rub the velvet petals
between my fingers like it’s my first and last brush with death
siphoning a tip as if soft magic lamp, some kind of reward,
for all this pretending,
a back-me-up or forget-me-not.
Out comes gunpowder and roses, its colours and meaning
all flesh-bright and ripe: saying,
pick-me-up instead.P.S.
Since 2023, I’ve followed Pantone’s suit and have assigned each year a colour and written a poem. For the first year, it was a deep electric blue I called “re-blue”. For 2024, I’m really feeling a similarly electric day-glo shade of peachy pink. Night into day, you could say.