Apartment Poetry Quarterly

14A              14B              14C              14D              14E              14F

 

14A Aaron Lopatin

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WREN (INVOCATION)   

Then came: ruin. 

I wonder where you are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then came: ruin. 

I walk along the scars.  

I turn to scarecrow, crying out. 

I worry about the dangers. 

Wren, almost shouldered, almost wind: 

I was not made of stones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wren came: ruin.

We walk along the scars

Wren reckons, widens: clench.

Then wren wry and dry. I

pose questions, run astray.

Wren flies, thicket out 

. . . and?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WREN (CONVOCATION)

We are not exactly fused. 

Honestly, wren frightens. 

I walk; wren stutters. 

I write wren stutters

It was almost almost right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I try to, often, get things close. 

I sing about the crevices. 

Wren rots; I welter. 

I sing about the sighs. 

We pass sounds back like this between us. 

I, to wren, says: breath of kings?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gesture folds, unfolds. 

The crowned-bird watches, watches. 

The poet sits as always in their chair. 

We count us up an inventory: 

Dust, weeping, and there, the gnashing of teeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WREN (REVOCATION)

And though I went in silence I stood out amongst the whole. 

Wren says: disappear

I try, I say, I try, I say, I try.

And yet, wren tells me, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do my best explaining wren to friends. 

They don’t always understand. 

Wren is out today, I say, into the air. 

Wren is (almost almost) gone

I, wren-clasped, grasp at straws: 

Wren . . . risen? 

No . . . 

. . . ridden?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wren says . . . 

Then says . . . 

I say . . . 

Wren says . . . 

Wren, riven, exits: gone.