I sigh more often than I did last year this year, out loud. I did, just now, sigh audibly. Everyone heard me sigh. Are you really so wistful, you dream-eyed bastard? I might ask myself, if I could be trusted to have an adequate response. No, instead, I sigh once more. Looking out the window this time. Thinking of things I can’t tell you now. Am I really so ashamed of myself? Yes, always, sigh always. So delicate. Willowy. Bred from my own inaction and my reliance on feeling rather than action. If I acted I would not sigh. I would like to be remembered by you. I want you to remember me and the fact that you won’t produces my most prodigious sigh yet. I sigh to this day. I have remembered everything, recently, at least and I will continue to remember and to obviously sigh as I remember. Maybe this ends too easily, but it does.
Laws & Misdemeanors
Be witness, children, papa’s killed his mistress and me, I’ve given this a lot of thought. There is no language barrier and no tight thing, once loosened, will shut again, so quit trying and devote your energy towards more a useful thing. Dad’s on the sink when the phone rings. He picks up; no answer. Sounds have been inserted: ticking, phone ring, crickets. They suggest isolation, lateness, that time still exists, the absence of pop’s guilt. We have to carry these things. We can barely. This day is my father’s only: They are so strong and destroy.
Up by Your Hair
It isn’t a thrill cautious correction every time I time and time and what’s a bargain if not paradise what is a statement of fact if not running through the forest
Last time I saw you there were fragments of another life in your life but what is working when construction is really necessary glorious buildings outside or around isolation
now not you not you now we are a crooked measuring tool now I’m still drifting agelessley all age no age you are the child of your age when you get older grow writing a letter using hair a disgusting letter that I eventually have to throw away even though the sentiment is perfect
-- Christine Kanownik is the co-founder of Augury Books. Her reviews, art, and poetry can be found in past or upcoming issues of: H_NGM_N, Lungfull! Magazine, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and Ping Pong. In 2008 she performed a theater residency at the University of Chicago where the collaborative piece Memetic Jukebox was staged. She currently lives and works in New York.