Poetry
I like my job.
I will shuffle these random desks
for a random meeting
to prove it.
I will be the hero, following orders.
I will have one thought for over an hour.
I will argue over definitions,
though that’s my favorite thing to do
home alone.
A book, my marionettist.
These desks are dirty pool water.
I will swim in them.
I will accidentally swallow a floating leaf.
I will drink bad coffee
that will make me feel bad,
good bad,
like I deserve a spank.
I will consume tasty ideas
that will make me feel good,
bad good,
like I can spin meanly in my underwear.
I will get ready for my ride to heaven.
The signal fluorescence
and talk of a vision.
I will even disagree with everyone else
to prolong the work.
There’s just one caveat: it’s spring.
Umbrellas are blooming,
and the dark of the day is green.
I want to dress myself
in cozy sleeves
of white trucks, tunnels,
the enormous sleeves
of people snuggling in public.
The earth says come.
I like the earth.
Karolina Zapal is a poet, prose writer, translator, and author of two books: Notes for Mid-Birth (Inside the Castle) and Polalka (Spuyten Duyvil). She was born in Poland and often meditates on the Polish language and culture in her work. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Adi Magazine, The Rumpus, Seventh Wave, and others. Her co-translations of Halina Poświatowska’s poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Poetry, Circumference, FENCE, The Massachusetts Review, and others and won table//FEAST’s inaugural translation prize. A graduate of Naropa University’s MFA in Writing & Poetics, she lives in Massachusetts with her family and works at the Mass Center for the Book.