Sample Content

Kim Addonizio
Plastic

A bunch of it is floating somewhere
way out in the Pacific,
where there isn’t even traffic.
It’s a kind of nexus,
twice the size of Texas.
If your love is deeper than the ocean
then the surface of your love is a swirl
of swill.  If your love is wider than the sky
it’s full of space junk.  All relationships
ebb and flow:  someone comes
saying oh oh shit baby baby,
then someone leaves the house key on the table
and sends a vaguely apologetic email.
Sunlight is bad for plastic.  Imagine an Evian bottle
having a breakdown.  Eaten by a jellyfish
which is eaten by a bigger fish
which becomes a breaded, deep-fried patty
on a seedless bun.  Isn’t it cool
how circular everything is?  It’s a kind of gyre
wherein float a few thousand tires
and hockey sticks, but mostly,
plastic.  In an airport
you can eat with a metal fork
but the knife must be made of extruded polymers
to keep you from stabbing your pilot
as you return from delivering your lecture
on postmodern literary theory.
Back home, you can take your green canvas bag
to the grocery store to buy your cereal
while the garbage drifts, sidereal.
Think of the earth as a big round head
floating in space, turning into a snow globe
only the snow is really sticky
and doesn’t melt, even when the head
sizzles with a migraine.  Here come those zigzag lights
and a sickening feeling.  Make that sinking.
Keyboard, toothbrush, cheap souvenir.
Even if your love is brighter than the sun,
the ick of snow keeps falling.
Everyone feels a little tender
when stabbed with a fork.

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