TWO poems
Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey
My Near-Dead God
The woods I walked in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I cease to sing?
—Henry David Thoreau
look at what has been done: the land exorcized
of its poetry. at the delicatessen I order garlic fries,
starchy fruits of the underworld. I am always
looking for the earth in things.
is there a meadow, somewhere, which you know
like the slopes of your own mind? sunlight striking
desperate grass, pine trees all tangy
with breeze?
so is the haunting. so are the hands of the land that will never
hold you again. I am in vexation, know this:
I am a creature devoid of ecosystem. what then could I be
but invasive?
what I sing for is diminished, a ripple of time
smoothed by a near-dead god. there is no voice
after the trees fall. but here, still, there is a meadow—
not mine, but another’s
poetry. so sway its own grasses, its own sunlight.
so I animal out into the living of it all, hungry for something
to translate. may I always hear the words
in the mouth of the world. Dear near-dead god, may I
never cease
to sing.
This is your brain on reality TV
in the lullaby book
we write songs for children
not yet born.
we wail myths
of our parents,
their twisted lot.
we eat lemons
right off the tree,
rinse the day off
in the blister
of the hot tub.
we once thought:
what is the world? what is that bright line on the horizon? how do seabirds find their way home with only
water and wind to guide them? why does the maple tree lose its leaves? why do I lose my voice when I start
to listen? what are the crickets trying to tell me? how do I learn to breathe? without collapsing under all this
glory?
in the chapel
we vow to try harder,
tangle hands in gold.
a stained-glass
confession. a sister
dressed in white.
we try to vow
harder. gutter-trawl
for love. get the remote,
babe, don’t you know
what’s on tonight?
Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey is a California transplant studying creative writing in Portland, Oregon. Their work appears or is forthcoming in publications such as Beaver Magazine, JMWW, and Anti-Heroin Chic, and has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. They are a prose reader for VERDANT, as well as a mediocre guitarist, an awe-inspiring procrastinator, and a truly terrible swimmer. They can be found on X/Instagram @esmepromise