Paige Lewis is the author of the chapbook Reasons to Wake You (Tupelo Press, 2018). Their poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Best New Poets 2017, and elsewhere.
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IT’S HARD TO ENJOY THE STARS WHEN YOU DON’T TRUST YOUR NEIGHBORS
The things I know
______could fit in the swirl
of an ear, but I know
______stargazing leaves me open
to attack, and I can’t make
______myself that vulnerable,
so I make myself dizzy—
______looking up, then back,
then over my shoulder
______to the clearing behind
my house.
In the clearing behind
______my house, the millipedes
are dying. Curling up
______on their sides. Water
is the answer to every
______sickness—I pour it
on their struggle. See,
______rain! Oh, rain is good! Who
wouldn’t want their own
______personal lake?
The lakes are too cold
______for this time of year
and the cold makes me
______do terrible things, like forget
where cold comes from. I
______push my lover out
of the house for having
______hands like marble. I urge
the berries from my garden
______before they’re ripe because
I can’t bear to be around
______anything blue today.
Today, I’m eating
______berries and watching
an old film in which
______the scientist is astonished
when the bomb he built
______kills people. I hate how
quickly he forgives
______himself, saying If you step
back for a moment, you’ll see
______I was just one tiny part. Of course
he survives the fallout. He
______is handsome. His eyes
are so much wider than mine.
WHEN YOU
when you write you’re writing about the body
when you pain you’re paining about the body
when you sleep you’re lying for the body
when you symphony you’re sounding out the body
when you (rephrase) you’re particular about the body
when you harm you’re voiding the body
when you gild you’re polishing the body
when you croon you’re lonely for the body
when you shepherd you’re gathering the body
when you dis/trust you’re dis/trusting the body
when you plan you’re unsure about the body
when you mind you’re not there in that body
____________you’re still so far away
