Member-only story
Poetry in Lit Up
Curiosity En Route
Free Verse
You wanted love.
I ask, What kind?
The mileage of a minute is passing hands
like satellites — too fast — for ticketmasters
to dock on palindromic bandwidths
and pocket on stubbed ends.
Oh my. No one understands
the construction workers speaking French. Allons-y.
Pas ici. Ils sont perdus.
Les enfants chantent des cœurs errants. Et tu.
And why vent? Some needs
are just a little sugar in the concrete, says
the operator of the crane who swings
a drinking bird, that gainly neck.
The foreman, too, agrees. He weighs fossils
on scales meant to see where balance lands. Made cities
last fortnights and dismantled them again.
(The cement driver, he stayed home.
Skips through channels with his wife
like workplace calls.
Nah man. Not today. Not for
bricked bones rooted in the soil.)
But — no. You asked for love
and got the motley kind,
one resume.
For offer: a pen pal of plutonium
wrapped up in martian wire.
Can’t hug. Has trouble meeting time.
But breaks down rocks like birthday songs — crack,
no reservoir — if that means anything.
