Genevieve Kaplan

two poems

I have this empathy

and I find myself beneath it. I reach
I reach for the stone fruit to see
if I can smell it. With a knife
I parse it on a small plate, pressing softly
softly to avoid damaging
the gloss. I meet a poppy
in the yard, a smaller second-growth
bloom. The orange of its gullet is almost gaudy
in the sun, against all the dust
the day washes out. I wake
I wake later or stay in bed anyway
because is splendor waiting for me
in the kitchen. If I just-squeeze
the pluots’ tops and wipe
wipe their skins to shine, how’s that
for sad wonder. How’s that. The countertops
are leaching glue, and the cabinets’ corners begin
to show. The rooms are weakening
with use. The rooms too want some time
alone.

Damaged images

I anticipated the morning
when the radio tower
had been compromised

which is to say, maybe stay home, maybe stay far enough away, maybe
don’t actually arrive at all, don’t hop on your helicopter jump
into sky and arrive. Maybe stay back, stay out of sight and see
if you can keep there for a while. Like a game. If you stay below, if
you stay behind you cause less damage, not so much damage
if you can keep
to yourself
what do you remember
from the void, a drifting or a feeling of buoyancy, being lifted and held
because of water. A lack of wonderment about the state
of the responsible world. Lifted in the water,
I recognize it. The train whistle follows
into distance. I think, oh, that is also a signal
and what have I brought to you. I cannot provide a date
due to operational security purposes, and each of the cloudshapes shuffling
up there allows a different reading, a nose-to-tail respite and response
for all the sea and land and sky creatures, and this compromise
has been catalogued as one of the “new normal” situations
for our climate but I’m not even sure I manage to take in what pieces
are sent my way – those images, or words, or sound-bytes, or spinach

there’s always another. Some unsettled shouter on the corner, the deviant
in the trees. Because smoothness is somewhere, or obvious, or so bright
we can’t quite land it
in our laps, that rainbow feeling, such translucent
slippery
beauty

Genevieve Kaplan is the author of (aviary) (Veliz Books, 2020), In the ice house (Red Hen, 2011), and four chapbooks, most recently I exit the hallway and turn right (above/ground, 2020), an anti-ode to office work. Her recent poems have appeared in Oversound, Bennington Review, Ethel, and Puerto del Sol. She lives in southern California where she edits the Toad Press International chapbook series, publishing contemporary translations of poetry and prose. Website: https://genevievekaplan.com/