i.The episode, the dream, ended. I see the path and the path I stray. To speak thy name—purgation. Saturday,at the hour the veil is thinnest, auburn, where the horizon is thinnest. In the hour my brother hath left me, in an hour, a time, of dying.To even speak thy name. No witness possible for those of us listening to music in our cars on the 405 tonight.All I have learned is to lift my head. That we met, a child’s shirt on, every muscle I thought pushed your face to grin,in a kitchen, docs and jeans—I’d never seen anything so holy—and you spoke to me?—a woman, naked, devoid of every virtue?The key you gave before the lock, you don’t have that much agency, you’d say. In my misery, it’s me, it’s me. Holy Saturday, you, exiting.Echolalia. Beside nobody, in a queue like a book. A mutual friend messages me on Instagram and what is there to say,we met, we met, outside a dream, we met? Saturday, first date, I repeat something cruel, rightfully, you stop me.Echolalia. Or, acquisatory, speaking of Blake, out back in a scarf and tape, laughing at boys in boating shoes,intellectual and evangelical, as all are evangelical, in the United States. Without you, imagine, otherwise the paltry sum of speech I’d be.Echolalia. Out back, in a sheer top, many starred and open air’d, speaking the same shit, the sacred contains the secular, the spirit, reality.Echolalia. Boys bristle at the crinkle of thy turning tape. Who hold me in me.The episode, the dream, ended today. The saddened powers, we. All I’ve learned to speak is one among thy many-splendored names.Child among children. Our self-same sun. I lift my head.
a SONNET
Feature Date
- August 17, 2023
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
Copyright © 2023 by Jos Charles
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Sergio de la Torre
Jos Charles is author of the poetry collections a Year & other poems (Milkweed Editions, 2022), feeld, a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions, 2018), and Safe Space (Ahsahta Press, 2016). She teaches as a part of Randolph College’s low-residency MFA program. She resides in Long Beach, CA.
Spring 2023
Publisher
Daniel May
Editor-in-Chief
Arielle Angel
Culture Editor
Claire Schwartz
As an award-winning magazine of politics, culture, and ideas, we publish quarterly in print and daily online. We have received acclaim for our in-depth reporting, trenchant analysis, and rigorous cultural criticism, and for our attention to literary quality and style.
Issues we cover include the uses and misuses of antisemitism, the inner workings of Jewish communal organizations, the politics of Israel/Palestine on the ground and internationally, race and racialization, strategies and horizons of American left movements, the global rise of the far right, diasporic cultural expression, labor, climate, incarceration, immigration, and feminism. Since relaunching in 2018 with a new staff and design, we have established ourselves as an essential voice in the contemporary conversation.
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.