Velleity
you have decided on the delicate mesh
of chambray for your first day’s button
down you are thinking ahead to how
they will see you how they will melt
down the dove of you the collapse into
smoothness we all do wherever the hand
wanders rocks caves lakes fens bogs dens
and shades of death a world of death
and all smoothness into fold and ripple
under it of agonist muscles radial
fibers pulling back and back the suck
through the teeth of the fruit of the eye
shaped apricot of the remote orchard
the apriori I have come to where it is
I have already been at a loss what ideas
I have of things or if it is ideas I have
at all discontented by that constant
nisus of the eye the strain the linked
low swallows carrying continually on
Kylan Rice has previously published poems in Kenyon Review, West Branch, Seattle Review, and other venues. He has an MFA from Colorado State University, and he is a PhD candidate at UNC-Chapel Hill.
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