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I became his
horse meaning
for a minute
there I looked
promising like
a winner might
just maybe
he could drive
me someplace
special someplace
he wanted to
go or I was
already there
or if not quite
closer than
he was just then
and so valuable
or vault-able
either way hurry
up and neigh.
Copyright © 2023 by Lisa Olstein. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 29, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
The snake is
a sleeve the deer
puts on, its mouth
a beaded cuff
in the haze men
make of morning
with each release
of their fist-gripped
guns. Is this a dream
of shame? Is this
For days, the world breaks down into a series of scenes: at the spring-fed pool on Mother’s Day, in the produce aisle, at the ball game, golden-lit, the about-to-be shattered, already doomed normal before the monster or the monster wave hits—sunshine on the canoe and glinting off the water smooth inches from the falls, innocently making a salad or taking a shower. It feels like a play today, Whistle, or like a shard of the future has lodged itself in my shoulder. Monday it’s a report on the impossible future of bananas. Tuesday it’s the story of limes held hostage by cartels.
Then I was a safe house
for the problem that chose me.
Like pure math, my results
were useless for industry:
not a clear constellation,
a scattered cluster, a bound
gap. When I looked I found
an explorer bent. Love