Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
In Chambers: Local Law Enforcement Professionals
hadn’t seen the like since Achille
Baquet on clarinet & that
Perkins boylight enough to float
away & dumb enough to work
both sides of the streetdon’t know how
it’s done in these partsdeputies
recall the time better than me :
found Drop A Sack & Hit ‘Em Quick
stiff as boards & tangled up tight
as frozen cats in a laundry sack
some have called it the winter swamp
routineit’s our “All in One : Field
Sobriety Test for Yogis /
James Crow Voter Registration
Exama nephew at State came
up with the script: “put your nose
behind your kneecap & when you
get to infinitykiss your
black ass goodbye & start counting
backwards”boy’s a geniusjust two
years up therecame back playing “Steal
Away” on nose-harp & jerking
his head round like it got stuck up
behind a rock in white water
Ed Pavlic has written three books of poetry: Winners Have Yet to Be Announced (University of Georgia, 2008), Labors Lost Left Unfinished (Sheep Meadow, 2006), and Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue (APR, 2001), selected by Adrienne Rich for the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. (updated 7/2010)