Wound is the Origin of Wonder

Maya C. Popa

A cross-breeze between this life
and the imagined one.

I am stuck in an almost life,
in an almost time. If I could say,

but I cannot, and so on. Sunlight
dizzies through the barren trees,

the skyline, a blue fog against
a yellow light, and on the highway

every Westward car blinds me.
Every surface reflects

that quiet understanding: decisions
have been made, irreversible decisions

to upend beauty for something
approximate—the airport hotel,

its Eiffel Tower on the roof,
a playground near the public storage.

Beyond, bridges like monuments
to fracture, and a sign for Pain Law:

not metaphor, but litigation.
Who would not, given acreage

in another’s mind, lie there
for a while to watch the sky be sky?

Maya C. Popa is the author of Wound Is the Origin of Wonder and American Faith. She is the Poetry Reviews Editor of Publishers Weekly and teaches poetry at NYU and elsewhere.
Originally published:
May 14, 2020

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