Annie Pittman
Samsara
after Frank O’Hara
I’ll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley
from the river wet & bright where I go to see something
move more violently & gently than me. You say
those green eyes of mine, but they are hazel
& so sometimes like mud glinting with amber bits
of last night's labels torn off & flung, like I needed
the sun so badly I caught its fist, a right hook.
When I come home, your bottle's necking out
from under the bed like a dying fish who doesn't know
air is poison. I haven't loved like this before, please
be patient with me. You drink the rum & I drink you & so
we are netted, amassed, each of us lonelier than the other,
which is impossible or rather must go on forever, blue circle
with horizon at each curve: think of the small emblazoned bluegills
needling our feet, think of the light on their scales in the whirl.
There is a gorgeousness to suffering, in its rock-lined bluff
& stream, how it swells, & too the archaic meaning of gorge as throat
& how I wish I could hold your cock there forever, am ashamed
at the power I feel. How I sing of sorrow like its syrup.
I’m not good at Buddhism. I want what I want
& for me, only, with my hands & with my mouth.
When I see crows rupturing the violet skyline, breaking it open
their wings small wounds, I know this is not my first or last life.
You tell me not to ache so dramatically, but I don't know how
to hurt in quiet—I lived in that dark room once & promised myself
I'd never go back, though pills offer a hand to cover my mouth,
not death but softer: narcotic hush: not drowning but stones
in my pockets & the walk down. You don’t want me to go where
you go, so I go where you don’t want me & wait for you there.
Annie Pittman lives in Chicago. She earned her MFA in poetry at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Her poems have appeared in BOAAT Journal and Midwestern Gothic.
Return to May 2017 Edition
after Frank O’Hara
I’ll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley
from the river wet & bright where I go to see something
move more violently & gently than me. You say
those green eyes of mine, but they are hazel
& so sometimes like mud glinting with amber bits
of last night's labels torn off & flung, like I needed
the sun so badly I caught its fist, a right hook.
When I come home, your bottle's necking out
from under the bed like a dying fish who doesn't know
air is poison. I haven't loved like this before, please
be patient with me. You drink the rum & I drink you & so
we are netted, amassed, each of us lonelier than the other,
which is impossible or rather must go on forever, blue circle
with horizon at each curve: think of the small emblazoned bluegills
needling our feet, think of the light on their scales in the whirl.
There is a gorgeousness to suffering, in its rock-lined bluff
& stream, how it swells, & too the archaic meaning of gorge as throat
& how I wish I could hold your cock there forever, am ashamed
at the power I feel. How I sing of sorrow like its syrup.
I’m not good at Buddhism. I want what I want
& for me, only, with my hands & with my mouth.
When I see crows rupturing the violet skyline, breaking it open
their wings small wounds, I know this is not my first or last life.
You tell me not to ache so dramatically, but I don't know how
to hurt in quiet—I lived in that dark room once & promised myself
I'd never go back, though pills offer a hand to cover my mouth,
not death but softer: narcotic hush: not drowning but stones
in my pockets & the walk down. You don’t want me to go where
you go, so I go where you don’t want me & wait for you there.
Annie Pittman lives in Chicago. She earned her MFA in poetry at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Her poems have appeared in BOAAT Journal and Midwestern Gothic.
Return to May 2017 Edition