Verses

In a poetry class in undergrad, my professor encouraged us to make "collages" out of certain poet's work by skimming a volume, drawing out favored lines, and building them into poems of our own(ish). I was looking for a poem by Olena Kalytiak-Davis to post here, but found that I liked my version best. The following is mixture of us two:

In the new mess of morning light
Jameson
And his two sons
Really
Each man, with a car and a wife
His tie, his waistcoat

The dinner conversation moves,
To my first hotel room
Sure, I’m unnerved, but I’ll listen
I listen to myself
Trying not to sound desperate, but beginning to repeat things

Caesar’s Palace.
The way life keeps splitting itself in two

I’ve left rooms saying: Fuck you
And you, and you
And then, made resolutions in a parked car
In a parking lot
In a strange city that is already too familiar

This strip, this city
My memory
Of myself and someone
Translucent, crazy, awake only at night
The panic of birds
At dawn
The mattress that murmurs from underneath me
Hey precious, listen
You should give up

But you don’t recollect like that