Meghan O'Rourke Poems

Even now I can't grasp "nothing" or "never."
They're unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
...

Stone by stone, body by body in the grass:
For this we trade our lone compass,
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Grew up on the Jersey Shore in the 1970s.
Always making margaritas in the kitchen,
always laughing and doing their hair up pretty,
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Because I was born in a kingdom,
there was a king. At times
the king was a despot; at other times,
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Inventing a horse is not easy.
One must not only think of the horse.
One must dig fence posts around him.
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Pawnbroker, scavenger, cheapskate,
come creeping from your pigeon-filled backrooms,
past guns and clocks and locks and cages,
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I tried to live that way for a while, among
the trees, the green breeze,
chewing Bubblicious and by the edge of the pool spitting it out.
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Was it like lifting a veil
And was the grass treacherous, the green grass
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We had a drink and got in bed.
That's when the boat in my mouth set sail,
my fingers drifting in the shallows of your buzz cut.
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You can only miss someone when they are present to you.

The Isle of the Dead is both dark and light.
...