Two poems by Andrew Seguin (Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 1981)

LAST VISIT TO CHALON

Tree through the bow
   of a ship
run aground.

Where the channel
   shallows out
and the church

shadow’s cut in half.
   Toward the bridge
with ox eyes to let high water

through. Stones I’d crossed
   but never seen. Swans
in the mosquitoes’ crib,

heron like a sink pipe
   come alive. On the way to
the roses called out in Latin

behind the sand-traps.
   Past the carp fishermen, ramp
where my ferry ticket turned

to bookmark. On the last day
   of summer, the sun,
a lichen. The fall: punctual.

.::

ANNIVERSARY

Is this age: days akin to waste
rack up efficacy, are so

deft at being gone
I never think to believe

they might have been engraved;
through the open window

comes a wiffle ball
like a hieroglyph,

a handshake is the signal
for the guests to begin

forgetting my name;
there is cold onyx

in my glass to keep the whiskey whole;
I can feel my hair is public

but my scalp is personal;
the slide is a y-axis

where children mock the body’s
decline, all evening creak and glee

will there be another ping
to announce coming events

the way the host’s oven timer
alerts the fray to chow;

a squirt of gritty soap to cut
the hands’ activity

they remember neither
first bones nor berry stains;

I am late to the table
because I cannot count

the purple martins in their home,
just black holes;

is this worth a name:
walls trod

by paintings of buffalo
while the chandelier’s ochre

sprays encouragement;
watch, the dish is hot;

rosemary that’s for memory
the fifth taste, for dark

==

Andrew Seguin is a poet and photographer who was born in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1981. He is the author of The Room In Which I Work, forthcoming from Omnidawn in 2017. His chapbooks include Black Anecdote, a winner of the Poetry Society of America’s New York Chapbook Fellowship in 2010, and NN, published by Tammy in 2016. Andrew’s poems have appeared widely in literary magazines, including in Boston Review, CROWD, Denver Quarterly, Guernica, Gulf Coast, LIT, and Iowa Review, and he has contributed to the New York Botanical Garden’s Literary Audio Tour. His work has been supported by the United States Fulbright Program, Poets House, and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Andrew lives in New York City. You can contact him at andrewjamesseguin@gmail.com

Author´s websites:

http://www.andrewseguin.com/

http://andrewseguin.tumblr.com/