mid century

 

novelty shifts the angle

of what passed for innovation

and libels the new millennium

in shades of modern avocado

and simple teak

 

what was a keen nostalgia

for an egg shaped elegance

and those clean primary

reds is now a blink

in the machinery of connection

 

a paper lantern nodding yellow

concessions to the exposed

beam of your adolescence

 

as if lighting up all that spent

relish will leave you no choice

but to lean into the pecan wood

console and lift the sound arm

 

to retire that wall of 33⅓

memos to yourself

track by track

  

Haunt Me

 

Half a century gone

and the Ouija board is still

uncertain. As if the whole

neighborhood of ghosts

traversed my geographic

map from outset to reason,

exiting its own expired alphabet.

  

Power of Attorney

 

I don’t think we should speak

until I can shore up my resolve

against the optimism that rides

 

me like a shadow, loots my own good

sense and folds a feeble charm

into my reply. This repudiation

 

is overdue, but what should ring

like iron truth pitched against your latest epic

fable falls to a silent incantation,

 

a hiss in the apparatus

of our conversation, a grace note harmony

to the myth you love to repeat.

 

That you now hold the lady in the tower

is new to both of us and though I cannot weave

her escape into any believable advantage, I see

 

now that you are a fairy come to defraud me

in both worlds and I must be Switzerland,

chilly, dispassionate and unarmed.

 

by Sara Clancy

 

Sara Clancy is from Philadelphia and graduated from the writer’s program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Among other places, her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, The Smoking Poet, Untitled Country Review, Owen Wister Review, Pale Horse Review and Houseboat, where she was a featured poet. She lives in the Desert Southwest with her husband, their dog and a 21 year old goldfish named Darryl.

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