
AFTER LEVINE
What does it mean to write
a poem that is angry? Little fox
raising a stone to his head-height
threatening lords and ladies
on the path. This morning I rose
into a feeling, a kind of dampness
despite the nice weather, a cold
dark cloth draped over my head,
stuffed in my guts. Last night,
in haste, I pulled open a bag
of chamomile, spilled its seeds
over my cup, drank it anyway,
without filter. Nothing angry there.
Except my haste was to avoid
another feeling. I knew what
I was brewing up. Knew what
was coming, or wasn’t. What
would not. Oh to feel as clear
and sharp and sure as I felt
overlooking the old streetcars,
certain it was a crime to be made
to clean up a mess that wasn’t
mine—my earliest memory
a toddler’s anger, mildly Byronic
I sometimes think—the self-
importance, someone who doesn’t
know the world is any bigger
than what he is able to see. Doesn’t
understand that the injustice
doesn’t extend beyond his self