Name: Boylesque
Duration: P00H02M50S
Description: Poem 1 of Section 1, "Boylesque." This poem was first published in the September 2019 issue of POETRY Magazine.

Boylesque

from O–(ezekiel's wife) by C. R. Grimmer, Judy Twedt, Colleen Burner

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about

Poem 1 of Section 1, "Boylesque." This poem was first published in the September 2019 issue of POETRY Magazine.

lyrics

Boylesque

That summer, smoke gorged
itself on sky. Two silver

sleeves of “boy” flung fire.
Hungry ravines echoed the Stop—

don’t rush rock’s rough hewn
shrubs, O Burning bush. That summer

was one after the last clearing
orange to blue, animal brains wet

as walnut slabs refusing to burn.
Between us—Stop. Look, if I could

pause the—O Wild
here you would choose me over

a People, oiled blackberries purpling
our wet hands pressed to wetter

lips. Only you could stop the smoke signals
lisping through the rain. In the pause you could

ask: How do you autopsy a branch?
O Ash already peopling the sky

that was the summer before
Anthropocene chic & if I could

freeze our branching away
if I could take dead coral off walls

if I could pull all of it back
To us To ocean To ice

O What humidity would hold
still between us, our bodies luminous

as heat snapping through clouds
electric eels echoing elsewhere:

“O” “O” “O” “O”

For the transcript to this poem, purchase the print edition at https://www.gasherjournal.com/product-page/o-ezekiel-s-wife

Or, for a full transcript of the poem and to hear an interview on it with the editors of Poetry Magazine, visit here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150768/boylesque or pick up the September 2019 issue of POETRY from The Poetry Foundation.

credits

from O–(ezekiel's wife), released February 29, 2020
C. R. Grimmer, Judy Twedt, Katelyn Oppegard, Abi Pollokoff, Woogee Bae, The Jack Straw Cultural Center

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about

C. R. Grimmer Seattle, Washington

More at www.crgrimmer.com. C. R. Grimmer (they/them) is Assistant Professor of Poetry at Utah State University. Their books include The Lyme Letters (Texas Tech University Press, Winner of the Walt McDonald First Book Award), O–(ezekiel's wife) (GASHER Journal and Press), and The Poetry Vlog: Critical Edition, forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press. ... more