With the Boy, with Myself

He has thoughts he doesn’t
think about. Birds might wake him
but they don’t. My thoughts
feel like speech—how one animal
makes nature—until I speak to him.
We use words like a tree uses light:
there is a process we don’t see but do.

A kid I don’t know hits another
I don’t know. I say stop stop
to myself. Speech keeps
happening against me.
The boy wakes to cry.

Credit

Author

Jennifer Kronovet

Jennifer Kronovet was born and raised in New York City. She received an MFA in creative writing from Washington University in St. Louis and an MA in applied linguistics from Columbia University Teachers College. She is the author of The Wug Test (Ecco, 2016), which was selected by Eliza Griswold for the National Poetry Series, and Awayward (BOA Editions, 2007), which was selected by Jean Valentine as the winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize.

Date Published

01/01/2016