"Countdown as Slow Kisses" by Michael Wasson

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day November 1, 2019   Countdown as Slow Kisses   Michael Wasson

10. Here on my knees I look for the single animal: you left                                                           ravaged at the edge of a meadow 9. Is everything accounted for? The fingers dipped                                               beneath the torso—to keep this body bright 8. Every breath we are desperate to take                                sounds as if a war lost against a country of promise 7. Discarded halos: the light you remember                    in your head—you feed on what is crushed between the teeth 6. America declares these dreams I have every night be re-                                                                   dreamed & pressed into names 5. Upended petals of qém'es                                        abandoned like torn butterfly wings—we'é I pray 4. I pray that nobody                       ever hears us 3. An eye gone             bloodshot: I tear through the crisp apple of your throat & find— 2. myself: this—a boy beside a boy. An eyelash                             fallen at the base of a valley, our dark bones bursting in- 1. to bloom. I stare into your beloved face & enter: yes,                     yes, this nation, under god, its black sky we lay our                 nightmares to 0. where I am your animal: my Lamb—now eat                me alive.            Copyright © 2019 by Michael Wasson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 1, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "We are given these bodies—full of beauty, ache, and history—and are told to survive. We lean into joy and marvel, into our living, and yet we know that what we desire ultimately devours us. Might we surrender as we climax toward our gorgeous, unbearable ruin? This poem says yes." —Michael Wasson   Michael Wasson is the author of Swallowed Light (Copper Canyon Press, 2021). He is from the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. Poetry by Wasson   This American Ghost  (YesYes Books, 2017)  "The Erotic Is a Measure Between" by Kyle Dargan "You Make Love Like the Last Snow Leopard" by Paige Taggart "Twenty-One Love Poems [(The Floating Poem, Unnumbered)]" by Adrienne Rich November Guest Editor: Sherwin Bitsui   Thanks to Sherwin Bitsui, author of Dissolve (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Bitsui about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year.  A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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