Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Tea Bag
Is it okay for the tea bag
To be hiding itself away?
Just now it is hiding away.
Does it seek to be transformed, ask
For the wet and the heat, plead
For a physical change?
I prowl West Virginia cranberry bogs,
Sniffing for you, for your tartness,
For your sugarless red flesh,
Screaming, at night, “Are you a tea bag?”
I am dying, love, of thirst.
What should I drink? The dust?
Read the introduction to feature poet John McKernan by Founding Editor Askold Melnyczuk entitled Where is My Lariat?: The Poetry of John McKernan. (1975)