[john box broke apart again. and again]
police were called, but no one came. (of course)
gauche john w/ crickets spilled his socks: he loved
at least a million women more than god,
(some men), shovels fat from snow, styrofoam
cups of hot cocoa, facts & amtrak routes…
why then could john box not fit in? what for
must john box make amends? impossible (!)
bridge beyond impossible (!) bridge beyond
the longest song. john never had “the knack.”
there were laws and little else to follow
like lines. john learned (wrong) even when he left:
the earth—such grief—could oops upon its crumbs.
Michael Marberry‘s poetry has appeared in The Believer, Diagram, Guernica, The New Republic, Oxford Poetry, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize recipient, he currently teaches poetry, literature, comics, and film at Radford University in the Appalachian region of Virginia. He’s originally from rural Tennessee.