Tuesday poem #479 : Joey Yearous-Algozin : On Poverty and Joy, or that a space would still hold a trace of our presence

 

 

— i know flowers to be funeral companions
          Etel Adnan

that we teach ourselves

how to die 

in the shadow of any ordinary thing

say 

a bouquet of white and blue

paper flowers

pinned to the wall

beneath two make-shift

picture frames 

that even as it decays

as the paper browns along its edges

collecting dust as it turns

from eggshell blue to a duller color

still holds

the memory of its occasion and the labor

of its folding

in the same way

the body breaks down

something intangible

that refuses

to be something other

than decay

or rather

that this refusal is simple

our extinction

written in the hand

or glance across a room

in which the memory of movement

itself so transitory

knowing that not only your presence will dissolve

but the room itself

will collapse

first the windows or the walls

leaving the space open

to whatever animals may enter

tentatively

at first

as they move through this space

that still holds a trace of our presence 

 

 

 

Joey Yearous-Algozin is the author of A Feeling Called Heaven (Nightboat Books), Utopia, and the multi-volume The Lazarus Project, among others. With Holly Melgard, he has co-authored a trilogy of books: Holly Melgard’s Friends and Family, White Trash, and Liquidation. He is a founding member of the publishing collective, Troll Thread. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan