Thursday, April 28, 2011

a poem by aaron jorgensen-briggs

Enigma machine



A cloud inside the patina’d warehouse,

the arrogant song of the ice cream man.

Kids with their small, legitimate demands,

buds on the trees like tiny fists.



What followed me home in the sooty light

was the sketch of an animal, the mere idea

of hunger. Can’t find it now, but sometimes I feel

my hair lift in the dark.



I saw a magician vanish

a whole airplane once, but later found out

that he had just turned us

into the kind of people who wouldn’t notice.



I heard the GOP has got a plan, a kind of breathing

machine. The song it plays

is positively amniotic, even at the highest

setting, you’ll hardly notice—you’re soaking in it!



As for me, I’m required to sleep

all day, like a sheet of tin in the sun.

Like a girl in a yellow school bus

with glossy hair that reminds me of horses



and a sad, pink shirt. One day she’ll know.

Someone stares out of every window. Everyone follows

the long shadows

into the afternoon, the golden hour.




Aaron Jorgensen-Briggs lives in Brooklyn. Sometimes he puts stuff on the internet - http://flotson.net

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