[pruning the oblong image systems]
pruning the oblong image systems
in the trapezoid of morning
sun, I am told that there is too much fog
issuing from the manuscript, so I turn to think
pieces for counsel, crawl naked to the museum
exhibit on medicine and fire and its intersection with a sadness
of the incurable variety, the docent lends me their eyes
a spring midnight in january, out of joint
and time, what is that, why is the hour both arbitrary
and contextual, now tell us something about your life
the residues and the closets and the instruments asked of us
we do not know how they did it
we do not know who is in our heads
we do not know how the previously dead
[we do not know how the previously dead]
we do not know how the previously dead
prints alived and blued their way
into our flooded attics, how the trapeze
artist broke ground on a project we referred to as
the reflection or the twin or the antipode
of suicide, as if they were sculpting a sculpture
in negative space, something that destroyed
and yet amassed space in the total, a thimble
on the other side of “thimble,” a pinprick in the air
beyond which was a concept doubling as a room
and in the white sinks and drains it is never too soon
to cease communication with communication
which is what we did, or didn’t, pissing on a hydrant
conversation arose in every quadrant
[conversation arose in every quadrant]
conversation arose in every quadrant
of the felled ironic forest
where we were so happy to speak
in any way, shape, or form
that came to mind and left it
find me in my personal entertainment center
find me in my psychoactive muffin
find me in the second minute hour
all of my favorite things look like flour
o anodyne, sleeper of ways
shapes and forms, middle road and song
I have laughed so hard and for so long
at the ceiling that it started to scare me
like the square root of a poppy seed
Alex Tretbar is the author of the chapbook Kansas City Gothic (Broken Sleep, 2025). As a Writers for Readers Fellow with the Kansas City Public Library, he teaches free writing classes to the community. His poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in APARTMENT, Colorado Review, Iterant, Kenyon Review, Narrative, Protean, The Rumpus, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.
