airglow day of hot
sneezer in the foi yay, permitted as i am to name my hour
the pummeling quality that uniquely static can, i take it on
i produce a horrible noise
i intensify
the horrible noise i track across the surface of text every time
mud
no i track the slow movement that to be moved violently very slowly and big
is
The Scene of a House Room, Coming Into Itself and its requirement is
now we have got it back!
we have got another one!
it has the look of a partial thing, even so.
ok, am i using that word right? i don’t really care
probably
analgesic pink tectonic sticker & sticker fridge & magnet
would you like that? i pledge allegiance
i mop the soffits of it
with a mop that is on a stick
my tools are skilled
they are appropriate and repeatable
for usage—
so i do it, do it
/depress the buttons, you or your loved one
no chemist
i whisper /select for me from your universe/
i pronounce it “see_lect”
my feelings for that ear are oceanic
and indecent
how else should i signify my business?
in which i mime the body like a lap
in the pool
it’s perfectly as cruel as true
it’s recent and it’s chlorinated
i put a cleanup on the cantaloupe
i put a needless stamp
then eat it
while you watch?
disgusting
i answer to everyone
and can you fault me
move through it on a vehicle
i went through a vehicle
then a phase, then i enjoyed the food, the god, control
i scraped the metal facings on the wall
i moved from a bird’s eye point
to i used the foot
as the composing instrument
the spray toilette
footstep function means is used by people
and the Chinese opera of the empty stage
gingerly was i thinking
i was movements
arising in my one unwary body
as the actor is a walker onstage
for example, they are walking through a door
for example, the door is formed by their movement
for example in such a way may an entered door be
completed
conjured with implements
and closed
but by what compass
may the soul come thereby in
quite wholly—
these roofs are red so the drones may know
who to spare
the movement of danger is when you value it
would you come false to my hand, you ask it
quietly, the states sing their state songs
in the dry sage brush, dry insects make
their noises to each other
there is nothing particularly for you here
but do please do come
—
Kirsten Ihns is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently a PhD student and Neubauer Presidential Fellow in English at the University of Chicago, where she studies texts that seem to want to be images, co-curates the emerging poet/artist series Plexiglas, and reads poetry for Chicago Review. Her first book, sundaey, is forthcoming from Propeller Books in 2020, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Hyperallergic, Black Warrior Review, The Iowa Review, PoetryNow, Yalobusha Review, La Vague, and elsewhere. She is from Atlanta, GA.