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Published: Mon Jul 1 2013
Eva Lundsager, Were now like (detail), 2021, oil on canvas
Solomon’s Wisdom Didn’t Keep

Solomon’s wisdom didn’t keep
him from pining for sleek

horses, so how am I—with no
direct warnings from above—

to keep my mind off you in the bar
mirror fifteen years ago watching

ice pour from the sky, when
we still believed in winter

and bartenders and Peter Buck,
believed no harm could come to us

from mixing Bass and Bushmills
and watching hipsters flaunt

fake fur and silver studs
by the orange heaters

until we were thrown out
into the frozen park

where the glassy trees
reminded us of us,

wrapped brightly
in their misery.

Mark Neely is featured in _AGNI’_s Emerging Poets Interview Series. His first book, Beasts of the Hill, won the FIELD Poetry Prize and was published by Oberlin College Press. He is also the author of a chapbook, Four of a Kind, which won the Concrete Wolf chapbook contest. His poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Barrow Street, Indiana Review, Boulevard, and Salt Hill. He directs the Creative Writing Program at Ball State University. (updated 11/2013)

Read “Half Falling, Half in Flight: A Conversation with Mark Neely” by Eric Higgins in AGNI Online.

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