Popcorn!

for DL

Let us for the new all room make.
You say my schooner is upside down
and I say my umbrella is enviable.
The gigantic punishment the sun
says something about broken glass
making every room sparkle-sashed,
every bright beauty terrifies,
the furious gift the sun mugs
through its Rilke routine with its boots
unzipped. With its Italian leather boots
zipped down. What could be
could be better. Think hard, sail
hard, love hard, in the new there should be
a window through which we come
and go as we please without opening
a vein. Midnight and noon square dancing
on the empty stage should be. The ocean,
because always the ocean. The taxis,
because after this, we will be
in no shape to drive. Let us give thanks
for vehicles imagined into real, for
the wings we think onto things
and isn't it a disorienting play date,
this breathing business, the seethe
of witness and acting, achtung! and all
variance? Let us lick our glossiest lips
at the varying variance. We now
return you to your original question.
One answer is popcorn.

About This Poem
"'Popcorn!' was spurred into being by seeing a status update or tweet by the poet Dorothea Lasky (the DL of the dedication) that went, I believe, 'Let us all make room for the new.' Messing with the syntax and making the result my first line allowed me to insist on our role in making-and subsequently apprehending-new reals. It's not an original idea, but I do believe that one of the best ways to make room or to room make is to indulge in serious play." -Marc McKee

About Marc McKee
Marc McKee is the author of "Bewilderness" (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). He teaches at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo.

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