Poem Mouthed to My TV, Election Week by Emma DePanise

Too close…………………. to call you but I’ll still

call you, sister, different …………………. rooms of the same

house ringing, and I’ll ramble …………………. down the stairs

until we can’t stand …………………. our phones’ interference.

I want to do this in a couple………………….  weeks, post-drive

from a red state …………………. to a blue. Family, I won’t

get too close. To call …………………. your names from the other

side of the driveway …………………. is enough. America, I know

you’ve had a long …………………. week (year) too. Close

to calling you a crunched …………………. cicada shell

stoop-spilt. Calling your droopy …………………. leaves, calling

you back, calling you gone. Night …………………. four. Too close

to call …………………. Pennsylvania and the lady bugs

in my apartment …………………. that I paper-towel-snatched, tossed

in the trash, I see them …………………. emerging now, all dots

on the can’s speckled………………….  lid. America, you are a spot

in the sky still I feel close to. Call …………………. me hopeful. Call me

never. Lover, I want …………………. to be too close to call you

you and me me, hardly………………….  a margin of us.

Emma DePanise’s poems are forthcoming or have appeared recently in journals such as River Styx,  The Minnesota Review, Reed Magazine, Passages North, The National Poetry Review and elsewhere. Currently an MFA candidate in poetry at Purdue University, she is a poetry editor for Sycamore Review and a co-editor of The Shore.

16 August 2021