Sarah Vap
Three Poems
A seer, enduring
the watcher's flowing face: be grateful, be grateful.
Ear
where the sheet of marble buckles.
She taught herself what is to come—
origami animals
on a boat. Those people working,
nauseated. Nobody
should experience anything they don't need to.
Her feelers
take the pulse of the house: matted fur
in the elbow of a couch,
the tipped branch made into the house.
Her metallic eyelashing, and certain sounds—
the satellites.
The quiet they make for each other.
Crouching wood, washed-up necks
held straight by something without being
the equestrian statues.
sorry, and more sorry— the loyalty
we have to experience.
Our inclination for resolving,
minutely: wrapping,
white paper ladle, the cow’s horns cut off
to disentangle it.
Your body has never felt exactly
the way it is feeling now: accidental, historical.
And vice-versa. That we’re so competent,
hopeless, that’s important.
That we’re so absurdly
important. The binocular
gaping. The mosquito making
a ‘bun’ sound.
Winter’s sunny
through the sauna’s half-bottle windows. Weren’t
you nervous?
Just as the world is. How the worst of them
drink their jam and water
and take off their clothes.
It’s clear to everyone. Except you. You’re not from here.
Implying, without shame.
That must be because it’s so slowly. So little
by little. But I’ve already told you.
I look at the beautiful men. Today my life is just like that.
Sarah Vap is the co-editor of poetry for the online journal 42opus, and teaches poetry in Phoenix public schools for the Young Writers Program at Arizona State University.