Tuesday poem #466 : Elizabeth Clark Wessel : Sticks

We woke up
to a constitutional crisis.
Couldn’t smell it,
taste it, never did see it.
We took a breath
it flooded our cells
the tiny clap of electricity
between our synapses.
We spent the morning
on the playground
avoiding dog shit
with tiny flies buzzing
around it, sitting on rocks,
picking up sticks
running as fast
as we could.
We didn’t know it yet,
but those sticks
were our constitutional
crisis. We got hungry
we got tired.
Everything pulsated
with an energy
we couldn’t quite place.
It lingered above and below us
It flattened what wouldn’t
be penetrated.
What I mean to say is
the world kept ending,
and we kept loving each other
anyway.
Isn’t that dumb.
Isn’t that just about the dumbest thing
you ever heard.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Clark Wessel is the author of four chapbooks of poetry, the translator of numerous Swedish novels, and a founding editor at Argos Books. Originally from rural Nebraska, these days she calls Stockholm, Sweden home.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan