Pull yourself together, sky. Listen up!
It’s not like you’ve been buried alive.
Everything is new to a new baby.
Red mourning happens in Acts 1 and 2.
More and more tree curtains and grasses bar entry. The tundra smells of new cars.
Try to tell the truth, for once.
Keep your eyes glued to the road.
They say, you can’t watch the same movie twice.
Yesterday clouds spread across the ceilings of a series of movie sets.
The impulse is still there: Leave this country. Everything is not your fault.
That old shadow shows up like a new song cycle or the history of tango.
There are green, gem-like islands dotting our wide river.
No one gets a paycheck. A sixth sense: I’ll never see him again.
Valerie Fox’s books of poems include The Glass Book (Texture Press, 2011), The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books, 2006) and Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (a compilation with Arlene Ang, Texture Press, 2008). Recently she published Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013), co-written with Lynn Levin. Her poems have appeared in Juked, Hanging Loose, Painted Bride Quarterly,Apiary, Ping Pong, and other journals.