no picnic

plain cloth cast upon the cool banks, the mere warbling frogs
             an interrupted repast, uninterrupted pile of leavings
the parallax of bodies which are and are not ours
            uncomfortable shift, uncomfortable shuffle
 
so many of the best days seem minor forms of nearness
that easily fall among the dropseed:  a rind, a left-behind
 
 
 
I watched the bluejays provoke each other, eager to scrap  
 
            if I could make the world my own and be satisfied
I’d say that you did not see them, nor hear their anxious fuss
            but you were watching.    I, in fact, was not
           
 
 
            forget that hour of meanness.    we should not have been
perched on the vestige of evening, treading that same gunny cloth

— D.A. Powell

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Read a review of D.A. Powell’s most recent collection of poems, Chronic.

Read The Rumpus Interview with D.A. Powell.