Becca Klaver

danger zone

Mister Machine crashes through the window again. I am someplace new
and novelty is a beast hooked to the fire escape. More time to dream
than ever before and I use it. Abuse it, shaking daylight hours
onto a star map. Wake up and shine. Dunno what’s down
the block so think I’ll make it up.

That’s dreamin’, too. I sleep (I walk) I sleep. Night-streaked incubus
in the white light leaning outside the bodega grips dice in one hand,
takes mine in the other. Conjurer and her creep.
Window-shopping grey faces in the glass.
A peep-show in reverse:
a parade.

---

independence

You heard the applause.  You heard the applause

When no one else could hear the applause.

You heard the applause when no one else could hear

The applause miles away on the Hudson

Under sky of bloom and boom. 98 and falling.

I saw the show. I did not hear I did not hear

I did not hear the applause. How could you.

Becca Klaver is a PhD candidate in English at Rutgers, a founding editor of Switchback Books, and the author of the poetry collection LA Liminal (Kore Press, 2010) and the chapbook Inside a Red Corvette: A 90s Mix Tape (greying ghost, 2009). These poems come from Merrily, Merrily, a chapbook forthcoming from Lame House Press.