There is nothing eternal about us.
Therefore, I embrace my dogness.
Therefore, I recover my dignity,
lost in Acapulco centuries before.
Welcome to the pecking order.
Welcome to the wet dream
of interminable rank and file.
Joy is on hiatus, and at parties,
all that’s spoken of is Netflix
and the catafalque of female desire.
My lips get in the way of speaking.
My hands flap, like fat pigeons
unable to take flight.
Parenthetical Lord,
there is an expiration date
on cold cuts, on nature’s
syphilitic blooms.
All I care about is everything.
All I want is an endless supply
of something.
I have a blind date with destiny:
no doubt I won’t be recognized.
I am done erecting boundaries,
done with adjectival phrases
and post-confessional lore.
I am an animal very rarely.
I will not entreat you anymore.
Author of two poetry collections, Any God Will Do (Carnegie Mellon, 2020) and The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and three chapbooks, including Empire of Dirt (above/ground press, 2019), Virginia Konchan‘s poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Boston Review, and elsewhere.
Photo by Matthew Klein
