Backs

by Molly Brodak

A green fog in the olive trees annexes any smoke
and that is my whole night. It simply turns off,
the radiating tick-tock, how a feeling can be
turned away. The chain trailing every purpose
is purposelessness. It rustles. It is a nothing
anyone can comfort into somethingness. A clover,
if you want, or paw, or very clear, sharp glass oval.

Molly Brodak is the author of the book A Little Middle of the Night (U of Iowa Press, 2010) and the chapbook The Flood (Coconut Books, 2012). She is the 2011–2013 Poetry Fellow at Emory University.