• Skip to content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Painted Bride Quarterly

  • About
    • About PBQ
    • People
  • Issues
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Print Annuals
  • Podcast
    • Latest Podcast
    • All Podcasts
  • News & Events
  • Submit
  • Shop
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Prose
  • Contributors
  • Current Issue

Daniel Biegelson: “Neighbors III”

November 28, 2018 by PBQ Leave a Comment

Replace I with you. Replace clouds with branches. Exculpate my heart. Replace my heart with another organ. Hear the body with the body. Extinguish the inner ear. There are times when consent is impossible. Remove the grasshoppers. Replace neighbor with children. Redact silence since it is impossible. Always in relation. Also a symbol. Replace symbol with synapse. Because I believe, I am angered by the slightest provocation. Redact glass. As a child walking in to see a swastika on the ark. Now again. I am rage and plagued by a hibernating guilt. I told myself. This is a safe place. Saved by people. Which people. I am until the sun shines. Once I tried to set aside you. Try again. Once I tried to set aside rage. I keep finding myself on the side of the highway confusing blown tires with black crows. Exchange branches for wires. You are not free. Extinguish the clouds. We are untrue. We are the murmuration turning over the earth with our predatory eyes. We want to preserve our singularity. We do not look at each other.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent News & Events

  • PBQ Open Editorial Meeting!
  • Readings by Dora Malech, Cameron MacKenzie, Thomas Devaney, Leah Falk
  • PBQ Poetry Slam at the P&P!
  • David Rock: “Driving Through Idaho”
  • David Rock
© 2019 Painted Bride Quarterly. Contact PBQ: info@pbqmag.org