Jonathan Dubow: Did You
did you hear the cuckoo’s cry lao sze chuan oseh shalom
under the oyster moon stone as a rubric
the beach plums
on the nude beach everyone mourned
go on mosquitos
jumping off a gibbous moon full with saltwater
i’m sullen as a towel in a tide pool
if i’m alive i’m goddamn cellulose
if you don’t fall asleep i’ll sing to you my whole life
Noon and Night
you unwrap your scarf one of us
thinks life is dust the other life
is a diamondback
frozen headwaters of the quinnipiac
orangutan snowplows in a lot
rain rolls off one eave onto another
rain whips the apple trees four deer
shake in the cornfield asking the
questions i came to have answered
The Way
as soon as i started everything ran
out of my head
what am i doing here i have a way
in slabodka they taught man
is great how can
he sin in navaradok they taught
man is small how dare he
sin i feel like i need to
hear heavy rain i still
wouldn’t know how to say how i feel
but there is a palace and it is in flames
mountain and sky office buildings
lovesick mausoleums long
strips of turquoise and red
a lady calls her dog inside
johnny
johnny
in a strawberry southern voice
all stories end but then
just keep going proximity
similarity continuation i have a
way i can’t turn
the ceiling fan off just down so
i consider the innermost volume
of the universe that sings always
replace us ha haha
JONATHAN DUBOW lives in Pennsylvania and teaches at Shippensburg University. He has recent work in Across the Margin, Alien Mouth, Reality Beach, and elsewhere. More from this
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