Cosmic Awards
They awarded me first
for turning into a Neanderthal
striding purposefully across the plain at night,
leader of my clan,
the nebulae above us near-intelligible
(where on earth were we going though,
and why?)
Next they awarded me for listening
to Persian moosiqi over the internet
and allowing myself to be
caught in the strings of the tar
while working out
some recondite distinction between
this and that
albeit I had points taken off
for dust,
at least thirty years' worth,
and worse,
for paining my aged father and mother
and for gnashing my teeth when I think of
my erstwhile lover.
Key
Who holds the key to what
and how did I float up
above the marble floor
across the road from
a Templar hospice
in my essential neighborhood,
daughter of a city
that called me there?
The place of prayer
is named after an ancestor,
the magnetic force here is
a friend of a friend
and I rise on atmospheric
waves of friends
or are these secondary
powers of my own?
Be with me
against the day
of oblivion,
key to the ark,
as momentum
descends into a background flow
alive in secret
but alive.
Betsy Rosenberg has been published in The Paris Review, Runes Review, In POsse Review and other journals and anthologies. She is also a translator.
They awarded me first
for turning into a Neanderthal
striding purposefully across the plain at night,
leader of my clan,
the nebulae above us near-intelligible
(where on earth were we going though,
and why?)
Next they awarded me for listening
to Persian moosiqi over the internet
and allowing myself to be
caught in the strings of the tar
while working out
some recondite distinction between
this and that
albeit I had points taken off
for dust,
at least thirty years' worth,
and worse,
for paining my aged father and mother
and for gnashing my teeth when I think of
my erstwhile lover.
Key
Who holds the key to what
and how did I float up
above the marble floor
across the road from
a Templar hospice
in my essential neighborhood,
daughter of a city
that called me there?
The place of prayer
is named after an ancestor,
the magnetic force here is
a friend of a friend
and I rise on atmospheric
waves of friends
or are these secondary
powers of my own?
Be with me
against the day
of oblivion,
key to the ark,
as momentum
descends into a background flow
alive in secret
but alive.
Betsy Rosenberg has been published in The Paris Review, Runes Review, In POsse Review and other journals and anthologies. She is also a translator.