Phoebe Glick | Poems

TODAY’S HEADLINES

Last year we lost many hospitals to high-rise condos. Today they make the park into hospital. The  hospital is lost to the high-rise condo, to the gym, to the park, is the makeshift hospital, is the  bank, is foreclosed, is for the people, is payed for by the paycheck, to the landlord, to the bank, to  the governor, back to the bank, to the gym, to the bike path, through Bryant Park, to profit off the  white tent in public space, infected with corporate neglect, through air particles, to stainless steel,  to the commute, to the bank, to the gym, to housing court, to the hospital, to the bank, to the  bank, ending up in the refrigerated truck, but back again to the bank, to white paint dividing the  tarmac, into two-dimensional cells for people without homes, to sleep inside, next to palm trees,  and light from the carousel, peppering the sundrenched freeway, which seems to go on forever

THE WORLD IN NEGATIVE LIGHT

It is difficult to tell the truth in a poem  
but some might do it for a prize 

It’s a heavy thing to talk about – when you can’t sleep
the state might offer to pay corporate salaries

so long as they call their corporation a campus
but not the salaries of the teachers at the state school

unless the school rebrands as a corporation 
one or two rallies celebrate the rebranding 

of state trauma as confidence, dominance 

all night vigil mourning the power of negative groups

a bumper sticker that reads “I too love someone with insomnia”

there is dopamine in deflecting blame
and darkness in refusal to participate

in these exhausting rituals of our time
wrestled from the present and its accelerated pace

and placed in reserve, for the future:

a dystopian sphere which privileges visible interiority
and networked participation over privacy

A neighbor sits on her stoop underneath an umbrella, same as before
Other neighbors clap, letting her know we are here

“See you tomorrow,” some say through glass 
I did it yesterday 

Seeking community for the end of the world 
What remains after all has changed, the free fall 

When I woke up I thought the worst, but it was just eye strain
The structure reformed so the status quo can endure

No account for human bodies  
Just looking at it hurts 

Here is the life we could have someday  
Now here it is taken away 

All my savings gone in the exact length of time  
it takes for Amazon to ship me a vaccuum cleaner 

Getting used to scarcity means we refuse reciprocity 
our only chance at survival 

Work, the money comes in, we repackage and send it off
These ideas are theoretical. But the way our bodies die is very real 

The rich have a harder time adjusting to life without convenience
They take their kids to the park. They wear their masks around their necks

COUNTRY

A country is like a museum 
let’s patronize it 
let’s resist it while living 
and when we die be preserved in it 

Sleep don’t fail me now 
I need you like I need a home to decorate
in my 20s I got to know you 
then I lost you 

Memory and sleep have the same effect
of passing a message from one world to another
the image like a life of screened film 
it’s symbolic and detached

I want to live some more 
then go on to the next thing 
where I have non-human memories 
a rhizome finding its sibling in the darkness of the soil

I want a tentacle that grows out of my body
and curls around geography 
to steady the ground 
so that I can get back to you