Mercy
The one unheated room in hell. The one
unhappy couple in heaven, screaming
obscenities at one another on a
street corner on the loveliest day of
summer:
Once, that was us. Happy anniversary. But
we got older, and the love took over. The
sunken luxury liner of so much.
So long I’ll never forgive you.
So long I want to kill you.
What a joke:
An overcoat thrown out of the window
of a moving car. Wounds
to meat. Like
the Gorgon. A terrific
noise invented her.
Followed by silence.
A blaze of radiation
in a bedroom.
Our mouths left open.
The way
they knocked the coliseum down
on the other side of town
and built a toy museum.
Little Christian.
Little lion.
Little cage.
Little door left open.
Right this way.
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About the Author
Laura Kasischke’s most recent collection of poems, Lilies Without, was published in 2007, and a new collection is forthcoming. She has also published several novels.
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Stephen Burt, The Speed of Life, review of Lilies Without by Laura Kasischke
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