Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Twenty-five
Spring 2011
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to do with the price of tea in China
Amanda Marie Silbernagel

Has not the hatch at four o’clock.
Not bar-close, Ouroboros, our need

To be taken down tenderly,
Dawn-ward & spiraling—

Nor have my midnight bitters
Gone Earl Grey, a team of wild-mare

Spirits dragged behind a team
Of drowning bodies

Steered lucid to their death, no—
Salve, no—Sun

(has neither weeks nor months
to say nothing of seasons)

As where lungs inspire: Life’s idea
Of rest is both epic & pending

To say needless, to say leave me
This snake around my neck

Or else untouched, as food
For thought is mere dew drop

Or if pearl-strung: has not orbit
Has not steeped long.

Lemons—the bag-lady’s eyes
All a-scurvy—bound-to-beg

The question of the fruitfulness
Of falling: has not leaf-change, has

Boat-steam not obscured things
Hasn’t night a higher thief

Than brute form? Reflection, say.
And now, say water color.

Bluish constellation sweating
Bullets through the dark

Noose, loosened noose, that whore
Of a noose— Lavish Dread.

Let down your hair, this time
I drink to you.

About Amanda Marie Silbernagel

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