Poetry

Patricia Lockwood

The earth turns / On a man’s need for gadgets

Clare Grill, Jemima . 2023, oil on paper. 19 × 15". Photo by Brad Farwell. Courtesy of the artist.

An Agate a Day

Mexico makes them, Turkey, Malawi.

They are total revelation. They are like a maze of mind.

Paths and paths into themselves and never too

Interior. My first was dead black, a Brazilian

With mahogany flame — it looks like Ecce Homo,

We laughed, Behold the Man .

Just as long as we don’t cut Agate Head,

I either warned or pleaded. He had arrived

In a box with the others, but different,

A rust-orange nodule like a little swede lantern.

And smiling. It happened this way: we had

Fever and for two weeks, could only watch

Cutting videos. Agates were glowers.

And sometimes stinkers.…