proper

"Your Proper Name" is the result of an exercise, led by Tommy Pico at the June 2020 residency for Antioch MFA. We read different trade magazines and harvested a word bank to be used to create a new poem. The crazy results were intoxicating. Here's mine: 

The brain is a splendid instrument

with a lilac tail that winds around

a kale clock, stopping in places to say

your proper name and drip ancestor

fury. Come a little bit closer

and help me look for the stash

of boxtops in the kitchen drawer.

It’s been so long since I saved

anything at all.

 

Coming home to you, the hearty

love which glows and shoots

this intensity, this fetch, which

blossoms on plumb wine. Your

proper name won’t matter, only

your desire to be eaten, your

crisp yet soft texture, the light

that stretches from one part

of you to the other—the JOY of you—

where I’ve craved salt and fat.