[PANK] Poem of the Day – National Poetry Month

We’re honored to have published works from so many amazing poets and writers over the years. In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ll be sharing a poem a day from a previous issue. Here are two wonderful pieces from Liz Dosta from Issue 8.10 for April 1 & 2!

Elizabeth Taylor, Horse Whisperer

Husbandry: if you grow it, they live by it.
Wives, beware your husbands.

There’s a ghost in the snow.
There’s a ghost and a hand that fills the hour with greatness.

Soon, all will be revealed:
here is a woman empty of her man.

We’ll have no more of Marion.
Goodbye Winterset, Iowa. Goodbye house.

Horsedreams.
I have cried many nights waiting for my man.

The radiator shakes and steams.
Nights look like dead crows in the dirt without you here.

Leave me this hour to reclaim.
Find me in the wash closet, a mirror between my legs.

 

John Wayne Builds A Fire

First, I rub two twigs together.
I smell arrogance.
The sky gets very small.
Smoke lifts from between my palms.

Call me Hightower.
Over open flames
something turns.
In my mouth with you

as with all desire which we will henceforth
describe as hunger, passion her twin.

Obsession,
the longing for object
in absentia, describes the span of time
between wanting and having,
is masculine.

Obtaining is a partial luck. No turning back
a faith. Keep turning until burning
becomes intolerable.

I rub my palms together and breathe
into the small cave my hands make.

Tell me a story
about the longhaired men
who come to the lakes to wash their bodies
like stone,
like love letters
held under water.