MIDWAY
Laura Cronk

From Having Been an Accomplice

I’m frozen in the middle.  Suspended, looking at the water.

There’s smog on either side of the bridge, pollution shimmering.  On one side are the Centers for Peace Studies, their Research Programs.  On the other side are the grocery stores.  I do want groceries.

I want to stop the war, but I’ve been consumed with so many things.  All of the small actions that go into this.  All of the preparing food and eating it.  All of the dressing and undressing.  Not just showering, but singing in the shower.  Laundry.

Small actions in direct opposition to the thoughts of the Research Centers.   This cooking and then eating dinner in front of the TV.  Not watching satire, watching a singing competition.

I want to walk deeply into the darkness, nude as a god, through the self into the darkness.

I want to blow up the Law with Language, having run my tongue around my mouth ten thousand times.  Instead of not speaking, I want to speak.

 

Laura Cronk’s first book of poems Having Been an Accomplice won the 2011 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize from Persea Books.  Her work has appeared in the Best American Poetry Series and in many journals such as Barrow Street, Ecotone, RealPoetik, and WSQ.  She coordinates the Riggio Honors Program: Writing & Democracy at The New School in Manhattan and is the poetry editor for The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food.  For many years she curated the Monday Night Poetry Series at KGB Bar.

Midway / Laura Cronk

  • Categories →
  • Faculty
  • Works
 
 
Back to top