Getting around Syrie

I cannot move around
my lust for you.
The room seems smaller,
the sky a pergola.
I can draw a breath if I
think about it really hard.
Then, there you are,
a curve, a thicket.
I cannot move around you,
shambling on my libido.
Forgive this poor peregrinator,
whose light comes from
your eyes, whose path forms
in your supple valleys.



Cancers
for Mark and Ellie

I only want no suffering.
I only want us all to live forever.
I only want the poem
to say things that make it make.
Perhaps it already
makes sense. Perhaps the poem
is only a fair face in the
carnival. I only want that face
to talk to me. I only want
it to tell me that everything will
be alright. I want it all to go on
within me and without me.
I only want to say something that
holds death up like a balance-pan.
I only want to never speak about death.
I only want it to not end too soon.
It will always end too soon.
I only want to say amen at the end.
I only want the poem to do something.
I only want the poem to do something.
I only want this poem to do something.


Corey Mesler has been a book reviewer, fiction editor, university press sales rep, grant committee judge, father and son. With his wife, he owns Burke’s Book Store, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.