Poem of the Week

We think we’re god enough to destroy it

CJ Evans

So it warms to be rid of us. 

                                               Little leverets grown
long-limbed, we’ve spread too far, so a fox is sent.

But the fox is us, too, culling us even as we starve
from the abundance of us.

*


                                                  There is a price I’ve exacted
to live—a shadow in which nothing else could grow—
but since I’m here I’d love.

                                                          Not in some time
come or gone, but only now


                                                         while what owns us
lets us, before it burns us off like ticks.

CJ Evans is the author of the books A Penance, The Category of Outcast, and Lives, which was selected by Victoria Chang for the Kathryn A. Morton Prize.
Originally published:
June 8, 2022

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