Back to Issue Ten.

The Topography of Woody Allen

BY KEEGAN LESTER

 

for Mandy & Lisa

I didn’t go to the parade
because I do not particularly believe

in the power of numbers.
My friends have all left me anyways

and the rain is  up against the sky
where I like it. If we continue with what we should,

we all stand to lose
getting naked and swimming in lakes.

Everyone will be doing it then.
They will name it something paradoxical

like natural hibernianism. People will forget
what the word hibernian means,

because they will be too preoccupied
with all the parading of lakes

with flags and their naked bodies.
And no one will think to go out at night

or of moonlight through what is left
of the shuttering aspens.

Keegan Lester is the poetry editor and cofounder of the West Virginia lit journal Souvenir. He is also the co-founder of the Metro Rhythm reading series in Brooklyn, New York. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in CutBank, Barn Owl Review, Sixth Finch, Ilk Journal and Death Hums, among others.