Degrets
drawn frogs appear to serve the exoskeletal goddess
in full mollusk shrug, shelves built for dated wreck
registers, cranial outbursts finely detailed, opening
at the outline of a spotlit ribcage, lists of thefts enter
micro-entry zones, respectability a possessive monster
needleteeth palms, langorous working in a front of
poured-in window light, off-white airshaft blue pushing
forward into the flatness of a room masquerading as
two wear out a corner, somnambulist soap performance
trickles along, black & white docu-film footage of
my fam’s thing-strewn space makes way into numbered
views, anyone may anonymously enter the screen
version of your interior & very few will, column
of skulls stands up a bulb socket, speed hump ahead
15 mph, minnows twig-hopping, playing pick up styx
in the hydroponic vape church fuming newness outs
of touch, & truth kicks back at a fool’s conception of
neutrality, thump thump, these kids need to stop falling
out of bed, ghost marooned on sock induces mock
shriek from the sub-aquatic generation I raise on stay
or no cookie, name of network: true, like & hurt go
hand in hand, the zebraic cosmologic selfie rides with
a drone stick, acktility expenses, tick trick carriers
careening into shape of snakes, sonar belts aura
saying activate instead of turn on, to radicalize a golden
tongue, dig the corpse & call it rotary possiblimity, we
just can’t help wiping the weird out of intelligence
Copyright © 2016 by Anselm Berrigan. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 20, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem is part of an ongoing series in which all the poems are called ‘Regrets,’ ‘Pregrets,’ or ‘Degrets.’ I expect you’re familiar with regrets, while pregrets have to do with getting ready to feel regret, and degrets are a total breakdown space. In this case the clauses combining into shape are coming out of glimpses into various forms of a room."
—Anselm Berrigan