The Department of Defense is Now the Department of War

I point to the moon and call it the moon

Ankle grazing dawn 

Sun struggling through 

I move between rooms and feel rather  

It is believed that to prove permanence one must laugh for no reason

Arms like counterbalance  

Throats soft engines 

I read the foundation of a forever closet is money 

A quail egg on Versace china

Beluga caviar for a cat 

I've spent all my life pulling this body to shore

That's how it is, isn't it? 

Instead of the wall 

The Exact and the Vast

Simulation, expired and tumbling

A time slip in a French garden

An extra armhole in the night

The best is when nothing happens

The most is a hundred teeth deep in garden soil  

Sometimes I sleep in my childhood bed 

Warmth radiating down

Dearest Jared Leto

Language is a cage

Love a small disturbance

Chase it

Feeling’s burning arrow 

Jetlagged and bleary

In the distance the tallest tower, the tallest crane

Private family temples

Fog in the hills, fog in the mouth 

There must be something I'm saying when I say it 

Perhaps that I am too invested in glass objects and their not breaking

The feeling of cold rain on feet

I repeat a movement to confirm my body is a body   

Looking around 

Not wanting this anymore

Euro-brasserie fare of four decades, 

Field, path

Flowers


Ground along the way 

I just sort of stepped

I just sort of fell in 

Man I watch from afar, 

Did I tell you I built you this chair so you might sit closer 

That there are only two more acts

The middle in which I open my mouth like an oblong star

Then all that is left 

Stevie Belchak is a poet, writer, and editor of blush lit living in San Jose, Costa Rica. You can find her—and her writing—at steviebelchak.com.