TO JESSICA LASER
I wrote my first poem and sounded bad,
Spent my twenties scanning the radio
In the car my mom then crushed and cubed
In a junkyard north of New York City.
I would’ve liked to drive that fugue wagon
To California with you and Callie,
Chris reading Justice poems to us from
The rear. This spectral seafoam Subaru
My prison, Kansas and Death Valley
Getting greener by the hour as we speed
Closer to the Bay, lyrical with rage—
We all improvise on your boyfriend’s na-
Me because we love it when you planet-drill
A sentence with “Ugh! Don’t be limited!”
“When I talk to you I feel like I’m just
Talking to my computer,” you said once
By the sea, then donated that sentence
To my poem. Now our poems are more
Narrative and I’m less bad, which is why
I wouldn’t change the station when “Work”
Came on the air for the thousand and first
Time, because you love “Work” and its lyrics,
Like when she sings “Work work work
Work work work,” or when he sings
“You need to get done, done, done, done,”
Eternal summer, eternal labor,
That song so last year, the signal getting
Clearer as we cross the mountains.
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