A d a m C l a y —

Looking Out Not Up

—after Lovis Corinth’s Unter dem Kronleuchter

Can one’s aligning relationship to other
lifeforms line the birdcage like
newspaper? Remember coupons
like some ticket to a better life,
the trick verticality played
on us all, or even the way a card
game can bring back the dead,
your ancestor’s jaw
hanging off your own
skull? From the chandelier
is not light but listless desire, as if why
be here in place of anywhere.
In an alternate world the spaceships
fly parallel to a sigh and all crash
into a lie.

My Phone Has Died 

We did away with years
but don’t know what to call 
annual reviews anymore.
Every time a pope dies,
I think of James Tate 
and how art makes
more sense than life
or how what we think
we hear might be better
than what’s heard, like how
I haven’t shoveled snow 
in years, but the drifts 
still pile up in my mind.

.