poem draft

still tinkering with this

Here’s a draft of a poem I’ve been messing with since I started it at Juniper last week, after playing (“playing” lol) a card game whose name I can’t remember with Franny and Cameron and Sam, that we were using as a way to do a big check-in. One of the cards I pulled was “The Jester,” so I borrowed it for the title. I think I want the poem to be longer, a la Elegy for a Soldier by Marilyn Hacker, but I haven’t gotten there just yet.

(Quick reminder: A couple more days left of my little summer “sale” if anyone has been curious about upgrading to a paid subscription! Most of my free posts automatically move behind a paywall after a week, so this way you can access the archives plus all the paid subscriber only posts (like the diary series and early poem drafts)! The sale will be up for a week—if you’re interested you can redeem the offer here!)

---

THE JESTER

Every building we stood inside together
still stands, though empty 

of your ashtrays and suits, the books inscribed
jointly to the two of us, the air mattress 

Camonghne and I used as a couch. One after 
the other we left New York, kept by loyalty 

from saying out loud that it was making us sick