This weekend we featured poems from debut collections. Here’s one more, “According to Scholars, Everything” by Roger Reeves, from his volume King Me, published by Copper Canyon Press:
—so long these days: the nineteenth century,
the twentieth century, the novel,
and now the night: prince of flowers: boatless
oars at the edge of a cold beach: sometimes,
we are asked to prove who we are: stranger
in the house of strangers: here, I remember
the white bee making a black zero above
our heads, the hairs of a gray cat pulled
from the back of our throats, placed on a dish
that would bear nothing more remarkable
than this: refuse: fat moon: peach pit: lamplight
spilling its affliction over our feet:
your hand and now your mouth starting a gash
below my nipple, a gash I do not wish closed.
(From King Me © 2013 by Roger Reeves. Reprinted with kind permission of Copper Canyon Press. Photo by Shaer Ahmed)
The Dish 