Nick Sturm

SEA BREEZE

Skin is tears, it says in my sleep, & I’m touching every book

Or at least that’s how it feels, like bass fishing. Like bass fishing.

There’s a song, “Summer Breeze,” but no I won’t do that.

Anything else, or debt. The view from the garden rains less & less

In the painting. There is no clarity & I dim the lamp

To strain the whiteness of my screen, my diamond.

At the party there’s a feminine allegiance, & we party.

I’M A MATURE PERSON, BUT MY FANTASIES

THEY’RE TOTALLY UNBALANCED.

I spill Lacroix on my exotic nature. Everything else,

Or bored. The cruelty fucking sings to me. Fucking

Vapors sing. A soft taco supreme. & whatever

Else, these marks, vast orange libraries of but no

I won’t do that. What’s in this duffle bag

Makes me feel fine, & I drag it through the parking lot

Singing, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.

Nick Sturm is the author of How We Light, from H_NGM_N BKS, as well as a number of chapbooks including, with Wendy Xu, I Was Not Even Born (Coconut) and, with Carrie Lorig, Labor Day (Forklift, Ohio). Poems have appeared in Black Warrior, Typo, jubilat, PEN, Sixth Finch, and Best American Nonrequired Reading 2014.