[Realpoetik] ALLISON TITUS

[RealPoetik Magazine]

*

OFFICE

[Department of the Lost and Found]





Whatever have you come here for, the basement

of a building near the turnpike.



Discards and burglaries pile

up by early afternoon, like always,



lord over this office of our winter’s machine: the wreckage


of the ship still wedged hull-deep



in the permanent glacier. The wreckage of the ship,


a bear suit, penknife and hunting knife and so on.



Statuette of a lion given over, who knows, put it with


the statuette of the penguin.



Poor drop-in with your grief-heavy

voice, take back your map of polar drift;



take back your mechanical leg.

Poor, dear drop-in with your grief-heavy



mouth, take back your McMurdo Station, and

the solitary southernmost ATM,



and the ice-breaker breaking the harbor, day in and day out,

this muscular opera of finders keepers.





Take back your overcast biding;



take back your weatherproof throat.




Allison Titus* is the author of *S**um of Every Lost Ship* (Cleveland State
University Poetry Center, 2009) and the chapbook Instructions from the *
Narwhal* (Bateau Press, 2007).

-- 
RealPoetik
realpoetik.blogspot.com
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