My Teacup


trees are steaming
ever more vital pliant DINK
I can’t see a thing in the sky
I choose George
Stanley over Fear 
and Trembling 
Tell why you chose
to do this or that
on each occasion
Nothing with hooves 
or heels was it? 
Excuse me for not thumbing
the abyss, “the goading urgency 
of contingent happenings”
how stretchy the membrane
how drunk the ship
breaching the freight 
we port with
however it is 
I am and come to know
the ruby field of feeling
and isn’t a life suddenly 
laid in all its excess
of doubt & dualism
gag in the mouth I forget 
to give sense to 
relations that animate 
to be carried among them
you are not an engineer
yet forms persist 
so topple the column
any place there’s a rope there’s 
the earth is not enough
I stick my head in it
I lose my coat
Credit

Copyright © 2013 by Alli Warren. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on December 4, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.

About this Poem

"This poem struggles with decision making and its aftermath, at the level of the individual, the nation-state, and the species, if it may be so bold. It sits on a loveseat, a barstool, a concrete slab, and an office chair. It wants to live, love and learn but can’t see the field for the steaming trees."
—Alli Warren