The môrniNG

every day thinking noun an absence
the period of an earlier life of time
how could you could hardly remember
be here her life
between midnight and gone
no need for punctuation
the edges of a conversation and noon
the sound of voice esp. a slight gasp
caught from sunrise beneath the voice
to swim miles away noon
and a laugh: I toiled in
the projection fields, a cafe from seeking morning
till audible night |
it was a little voice after a tumbling laugh
it can’t get the voice right the morning |
the flexibility of an indefinite pronoun
so young it was a beautiful anti-ocular the two of them
a heightened life sunny morning always touching
• sunrise: a hint of steely light the circus a trick of time
showed that morning think it is a part of you was on its way
adverb (mornings) but division only in mind informal
every can’t relate mourning: mornings, she’d sleep late
exclam. Lost the record informal
alliteration, the kissing w’s
short, angry at a body, for good morning.
PHRASES how could it do this
Swimming morning, noon, and night
Sand Lake’s ORIGIN cells dividing weird and wild
Middle English: add it all up
from morn, green tea and a radio wave
on the pattern of evening.

Jena Osman’s books of poems include Public Figures (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Network (Fence Books 2010, selected for the National Poetry Series in 2009), An Essay in Asterisks (Roof Books, 2004) and The Character (Beacon Press, winner of the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize). She founded and edited the award-winning and internationally recognized literary magazine Chain with Juliana Spahr for twelve years; Osman and Spahr now edit the ChainLinks Book series together. She teaches in the MFA Creative Writing program at Temple University in Philadelphia.