Kelly Nelson

Sonnet LXXXIX    
                             after Berrigan

Dear Ted, hello. To the big promise of an envelope
Of Marilyn Monroe, of vast orange
dreams, delicious behinds ready to telescope
And O,            Today I think I could sing E
flat major, her beautiful blue Peering-Eye. Lash
our five trunks to the roof, tell Bernie to wire
us money (how his simmering belly must ache)
I’ve seen skies split with light, and fire,
one nation under G, under H, and
O, I am high. It is 5:15 a.m. Render
for me Frank O’Hara’s “Walking,” not one ampersand
in the whole thing (Allen would’ve used ten). Der
Spiegel reporters have discovered the most photogenic
snow and I’m standing in this breathless blue, tossing you a pomegranate.




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Kelly Nelson is the author of the chapbooks Rivers I Don’t Live By and Who Was I to Say I Was Alive. Her work has appeared in RHINO, Quarter After Eight, Another Chicago Magazine, Best Experimental Writing (BAX) and elsewhere. She lives in Tempe, Arizona and teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at Arizona State University.  Find her online at kelly-nelson.com