All disembark! cried the bad conductor
to his bad object of worse faith,
assembly-line parts boxed,
preserved in bubble wrap
of English syntax's SOV.
Crowning glory of France: le LA.
He knew that he heard the femme,
a bird's cry at daylight or before,
in March, a scrawny cry from outside
that seemed like a sound in his mind.
Before sleep's faded papier mâché,
knowledge of absolute difference.
Beyond an endless hall of mirrors,
twisting spire of protozoan DNA:
the thing's first idea of thought,
and thought, of the thing.
©
is the author of Vox Populi, and a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (forthcoming, Noctuary Press), Virginia Konchan's poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Best New Poets, The Believer, The New Republic, and Verse. Co-founder of Matter, a journal of poetry and political commentary, she lives in Montreal.
We’ve published two more poems by Konchan: “Diamond Sutra” and “Venus Anadyomene.”
