poem
Volume 30, Number 4

Trying to Pronounce ‘nuclear option’

fixing the face to say,

one unwelcomes sanity for
good

          a small triangle of red
melon offered freely, spit out

                                                  one
despises the retriever's whole
trust, the cat's, the goose's, even,
the

          unlying eyes, look

how the black horse leaves the roan,
approaches cautiously but with grace
one

          unlearns that the leathery
beans, lacking rack or wall, will grow
sideways over the grass

                                        extend
dozens of fingers, no matter the
continual rain surrounding

                                                  one

unloves children,
one

unremembers the smell flesh makes

burnt
to a remnant
of rock


—Harold Ackerman