"pit hymnal" by Klara Pokrzywa

Star of this soreness I laugh myself awake, sling deep

into the heave. Straight out of dirt road walking and at capacity—this being

the back-alley way; the heartbreak; the running

away constantly.

Interest’s beam catches the crowd

which catches you before you collapse, tremendous, breathless,

one hundred hands on your back.

It’s true that at its best the thrum goes sugarwater sweet; I reduced

from hypochondriac fractal to taut and trembling string.

A vamp kid whose hurricane capacity

to be still in the thick of it

says we’re all going to the edge of hearing and despite the warnings he lives

with his crickets, their theoretics, decoding dutifully

their offstage hum. Yes hard to argue

with longing; years spent poised as pinnacle,

waiting to be hit;

come see the air in its shakes.

Go geometrical

through

the punch, quiet

as a film still—

Thou

colossal

ache—

Back as we strummed

our arms at suburban stoplights, powerchord pathetic;

such was our only job.

Now we’re singlenerved and kneeling,

tendering blood from our mouth.

Klara Pokrzywa is a poet and librarian living in New York City. Her work has most recently been published by Denver Quarterly and In Parentheses.