poem
Volume 36, Number 2

So You Took Away D, E, and I

a lipogram after Mark Dunn’s Ella Minnow Pea

you scorn folks
who fought for a song
your own trauma tugs
turns on a lark,
turns back clocks.
now you fray cloth,
gnaw as a moth,
grasp collars,
gray from a gasp,
wrung out by a goal
you opt not to know about.
you, you club of snowy boys
(or gals), now common ghosts, a mortal horror. 

but.

our happy stays
sancrosanct.
my ally hangs fast.
you cant stomp out
cultural joy
or stop buoyant
whoops
from skysoar.
you cannot put out
our
lamps.


—Poonam Dubal