What Rough Beast | Poem for May 12, 2019

Christine Poreba
Their Piece

Not
a conversation
but
an act.

She said:
her body
with the memory
of flight.

He said:
No no no no
no.
Ridiculous.

The back and forth
of bodies
like two halves
of a house

two teams
tugging
at the rope.
Meanwhile,

mockery
and cheers.
A chorus
from the rows.

Meanwhile,
a house. One
on an unremembered
street. One

she’d wanted
built
with two
front doors.

Another body
is weeping
among the torn voices
on a second story.

Christine Poreba is the author of Rough Knowledge (Anhinga Press, 2016), winner of the Philip Levine Prize from California State University, Fresno. Her poems have appeared in Subtropics, The Southern Review, The Sun Magazine, and other journals, as well as in a number of anthologies. A native New Yorker, she now lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her husband and son.

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