One incorrect definition for conjuncture:
anecdotes, seamed and charred into process
To reshape our form, towards another incomplete
Hope changes the outcome of language
Each season, a chance: to send money home, to evade death
It’s easier if you promise the boss you believe
A chapter titled: How the Dead Helped to Organize
the Living. A chapter titled: El Clamor Por La Tierra
In the daydream he’s backlit and describing a highway
Sin embargo, love doesn’t verify its description
The people closest to the land were killed first
This will not be news. Look how I found you in spite of
English in spite of Reagan and the Catholic Church, despite
wilted certainty
Our material is Third, only desire is inevitable—of what’s next after
This could be it, the animal; this could be a misguided advertisement
for new desires: more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more,
If we are waiting in line for ourselves
what else could we
Copyright © 2023 by Zaina Alsous. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 27, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.