Politic
The radio is a pile of transmissions, like much else.
And anger is a handbasket full of sound and sweet notes
left on the doorstep. Last year
more than four million American babies were born
and there’s not too much that that can mean.
A dream watches other dreams
like an animal fighting itself
within a burlap sack. Many minutes pass.
And marvelous springtime eyes its own predictable mess
as new life trembles beneath the wind.
A religion found only on mountaintops
composes songs for the future, as you climb stairs
climbed by the past. A magnetic field
forces its demands upon the world, like a dog, drunk again.
Therefore, foreign policy is yet another irony.
Leafing through a photo album is history and architecture:
in a photograph, what replaces memory is a pose
that does not change, regardless of whether the picture
is held close to the face, like this,
or very far from the face, like this.
About the Author
Nick Courtright’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. He teaches at Southwestern and St. Edward’s Universities.
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