A Poem By Ben Purkert

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

U-Haul & the Dream of Arrows

a little pink lemonade in the nick of
my thumb, a little radio
static ringing in my lungs & each lung works
like a cut-out since the body
can’t be everywhere, can’t be all things
to all mirrors & with my windows
down I’ll pretend this isn’t a U-Haul but
a huge-ass space bot bearing me
in its gaping mouth & the two of us
could throw around ideas for
miles, we could blow by a million
signs lit up, high in the sky with arrows
pointing down & I think maybe
that’s what sky is, just a whole mess
of extremely sharp ends
& the U-Haul has something he needs
to say, he nearly breaks down
from not saying it

Ben Purkert’s poems are forthcoming in The New Yorker and Denver Quarterly. He’s currently completing his first manuscript, One Good.

We keep the rest of the poems in the archives of The Poetry Section. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.