Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Spoon, or A convenient place setting
We were a dinner once by lamplight or bone china and standing at the table
we were a love a room with doors painted onto the plaster
ceilings that multiply over our heads we took shape
as a sky remains ominous pressing our hands into the earth and our bodies into an angle of consent
we were particular and penetrating and impossible
slaves pressed into the earth
so we underneath the earth
we were a dinner once hungry & speculative at evening
we thought the hills would rise waves on an uneven ocean
and crashing
that was prophecy that was grackles perched at the curb a cathedral in ruins
we were a dinner once
uncomplicated by what happened outside and the traffic moving towards the city a perspective
overshadowed by evening we were a dinner once we were an angle of consent
Kent Shaw received the 2007 Tampa Review Prize for his first book, Calenture (University of Tampa Press, 2008). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Third Coast, The Literary Review, The Greensboro Review, and other journals. He is a PhD student in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program. (updated 5/2008)