“I could invent the jaybird in my yard / but he is singing” (John Sailer, Unsplash).

there’s never-heaven always in my hand

reminding me my fingers have no grip

on Heaven ever, coming through the trees—

that kind of fastening the morning holds

on everything the sun allows to pass

under surveillance, possession, loss, loss, loss…

Once I thought I was here to name the stars.

Wasn’t that yesterday? But now I know

in this blue moment I’ll find everything.

I could invent the jaybird in my yard

but he is singing. That’s how I fly from here—

already he is more than I can bear,

his music tearing me up inside till I die,

rise, die, rise, die. This is just metaphor.

And this: I’m resurrected every day.

Peter Cooleys twelfth book of poetry, Accounting for the Dark, was released by Carnegie Mellon in February 2024. 

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Published in the April 2021 issue: View Contents