Andrew K. Peterson
If It’s Not Love Then It’s The Bomb The Bomb The Bomb that Will Keep Us Together
That wall with a door in it was something I had to have.
—Georgia O’Keeffe
Things to do in the din: slip
away, fall off, balk back double
time. Turn down the bridge
reverb in a robin’s egg. Cop
a whisper. The universe is
smaller in America. Scream.
Walk the driest latitudes crushing on
bustling pink flowers of a burnt gown
grown wide with bark-fried tears. Radiate
gaucho dusk. Wander out from blunderings,
back to the street, empties in pockets,
practice late capitalism with minimalist pan-
ache: huddle vulnerable with soft
secrets at the ATM brushed smooth
by smooth jazz pouring down the crack
of a lion’s ass. Seek loss in false stops
or risks too loose. What’s nobler?
Trust that lowers, lilacs. Also, memory.
You’re the water in a congress
of the best thing I can do
today: get money off my mind.
This isn’t fate, it’s just what you get.
Who put the bomb in the bomb
sh’bomb. bloop! still tested over the sea.
A willow-spun joke, a fathom’s
dumb depths. Tightly wished at.
cusps Crush out. Shimmer.
Rest the rest in morning air’s
illusions simmered into.
Summon in summer faster.
Andrew K. Peterson is the author of The Big Game Is Every Night (Locofo Chaps, 2017), Anonymous Bouquet (Spuyten Duyvil, 2015), and bonjour meriwether and the rabid maps (Fact-Simile, 2011). His work appears in Emergency Index 2012 (Ugly Duckling Presse) and has been featured in museum exhibits and performance projects. He edits the online literary journal summer stock and lives in Boston.
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