Pax

Richard Kenney

So, Love, when that celebrated clarifier,
Chemotherapy, calls back—for us,

this time, with his white, apologetic smile,
his porcelain saucers of carbolic acid and lye,

his banker’s insistence on reality-based accounting,
well, we’ll want these chances back. The canting

hours, the fund of unkisses, the mind, unMidas-
like, immodest ever in miniature amidst

the molten metals of the morning, his brazing-iron
of petty anger held against the pure ore

of the already-gold world.

Richard Kenney is the author of Orrery, The Invention of the Zero, and One-Strand River: Poems 1994-2007. He teaches in the M.F.A. program at the University of Washington.
Originally published:
July 1, 2019

Featured

The Shapes of Grief

Witnessing the unbearable
Christina Sharpe

Writing in Pictures

Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature
Chris Ware

Garth Greenwell

The novelist on writing about the body in crisis
Meghan O’Rourke

You Might Also Like

Books

Incalculable Loss

How writing can help make sense of grief
Christopher Spaide

Afterlife

Richard Kenney

Subscribe

New perspectives, enduring writing. Join a conversation 200 years in the making. Subscribe to our print journal and receive four beautiful issues per year.
Subscribe