from I did it I said it

​​Fired canons being reversed back into their sockets


 
Words that you can never take back being reversed back into the lungs and mouths that

            uttered them

​
 
A broken promise being reversed back into the lighthouse
 


The first time he hit her being reversed back into the honeymoon


 
The pills that were stolen and replaced with prenatal vitamins being reversed back into     
       
             the pillbox
 


The bridge that took half a decade to build and cost eleven worker lives being       
     
             reversed back into cement and ore and swing-set
 


The piano that took half a decade to build being reversed back into beech and spruce   
 
              and ore
 


The machine reversed back into a body reversed back into an animal reversed back into   

              the plains reversed back into graphite without with
 

​
Painted flowers that are unstrung

from I did it I said it

I played telephone with

the patch/pitch of earth

danced forwards and backwards

I guess I was actually trespassing that whole time...

I saw you making love to my best friend

I lived a normal life and it was

fucking beautiful

Come! let us swim in our pellucid copious trivial our having escaped an unfathomable crime

by way of having the memory of us

​together

Eric Prunier. Speed. Courtesy of the artist.

---

Valerie Hsiung is the author of three full-length poetry collections, most recently e f g (Action Books). Her latest writing can be found in Cloud Rodeo, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Fanzine, Pinwheel, Prelude, Tammy, and Yes, Poetry. She has performed at Casa Libre en la Solana, Common Area Maintenance, Leon Gallery, Milk Run, Poetic Research Bureau, Rhizome, and Treefort Music Festival. Born in Ohio, Hsiung studied literature and translation at Brown University, and is currently based out of New York, where she works as a modern-day matchmaker. She serves as an editor for Poor Claudia.

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