1 Sep: "june 8, the smiley barista remembers my name" By Wo Chan

Beauty on earth so blue, even the cheese flowers
a culture with no democracy...    Yesterday (for example),
I ate the same sandwich I eat every week: eggplant
roasted in red pepper aioli, a focaccia jammed full
by arugula, capers sweaty in browned butter. How
have I come to love routine? I’m thirsty and abashed.
The fabric of my childhood underwear triple axels in the wind—wow.
The whole neighborhood watches me do emails, go to therapy: she shed

revenge for forgiveness. I said it, “i forgive you” slipping
like a key beneath a door, where never was a house attached.
Is it beauty on earth, so blue? Each side stalled, you are touched,
forstanding the sun. Its fat macula borne down grips
(i wish! i saw! i fear! i heard! i dream) like an emotion.
This is not a feeling. This can be, I think, a conversation.

Source: Poetry (January 2020)

2 comments:

  1. I just read a "rule" for sonnets after I read the last line of this poem to refresh my memory on their format and I do not know if I knew that that sonnets "often try to describe a problem/solution or question/answer"....and it made me love the last line of THIS poem even more. We get such an external and internal view inside of this poem with the title giving us a big clue.

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  2. I'm such a hater. No dude, the barista just likes bigger tips and remembering the name of someone is profitable.

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