Like an Arrow That Feels
Michael Robins
This poem includes complex formatting, shown in the image above. For visitors using text-to-speech readers, here is a plain-text version of the poem.
Like an Arrow That Feels
Candor shoots a wink, heart & pang
when hapless geese shiver through
the turbine & blades. Didn’t know
speech was a gander flunked to hell.
We bade swelling in our chair, eyes
blotto, duplicate Tuesday afternoons
woozy & waged toward zero o’clock.
Our mouths wore an array of croon.
Spring swung like an April in waves
foreseeable, feathered, shoring blue.
We’d forgotten our tools for a party
counting highballs, ice, crooked time
hanging on its skinny nail. Honestly,
we hadn’t reckoned planting a war.
Many said I love you, many said too
I’ll call you when we land. We were
together omens slipped from a note.
We wish we’d made these stories up.
From In Memory of Brilliance & Value
Available from Saturnalia Books, via UPNE
Also available from Small Press Distribition
Michael Robins was born in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of several collections of poetry — including The Next Settlement and Ladies & Gentlemen (Saturnalia Books) — and teaches literature and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago. For more information, visit www.michaelrobins.org.
