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Kranz-finalText:
Can I please be added to this group? I’m looking to relocate Ten Bristlebirds. I’d like a disorienting trip through dark wonder. Because of the orcas / because of the snowmelt / the gnawing displeasure / the rings of the redwoods / the barking owls and their / habit of blinking—I’d like to buy your Very Beautiful Fragile Coffee Table. Also, does anyone else here see the 2029 moon mission / when they close their eyes?
Congratulations you’ve been added. We regret to inform you we could not deliver / your One Wild Swan. Please be assured your reverie / is on its way. Spoiler alert: the very best stuff is gone, though some quality stuff remains: half of this world / a perfectly listenable soundtrack / of the first fireflies. For your seriousconsideration: i’m seeking a cosmic muse. For fun: divination and private equity.
I await / your pulse-realisms
This is an out-of-office reply. I’m on a quest / to visit all national parks / listen to night fall / on sharp ordinary tin / Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” / on repeat / French sample-core music / dropped into a wilderness. I understood you were going to renew the following: peak spring / the last bloom of summer / my Twelve Tapered Candles / this one song / the Three Warm Embers you sent on Tuesday—extending. Please advise
Dear preciousvalued customer. We cannot provide an extension. Your tolls are notyet paid. The downfall started with / your playlist / and are about tobeoverdue. Please deal with it / assoon as possible. In the meantime we’re pleased to offer you: a Grand Closing / of dubious quality / radio gewgaws and whatnot / excellent pastures / for dragon or gosling. You’ve won a free / more. Drink well!
Thank you, but here are the predictions: the centuries yield. First darkness—then our understanding of the moon. I have to go to a wedding now and will drink there. It wasn’t always pretty / the crime scene. Good seltzer should hurt, right?
Dear Sir we worry. We’ve got you covered in: bathroom laws / lesser branches / unanimous concern / the subject of your three journals / the blast radius / Things that could still collapse / pie charts of sun-dappled redwoods / your bout with shingles
Please consider. It will be fun! We like to cook / move furniture, coldly / in gigantic, perfectly clean homes. No one has to leave their room / unless they want to
Me again. Was it always this airless between two beds and a desk? And why are we even here / canyoning down this unlit service staircase? It’s boom time for beginnings, I know, but it falls on me—the world and how it rises / bat-shaped thoughts / a small branch / caught in a cloudburst / the rapture of beetroot. It’s all soaked through with so long
Dear SirMadam. May I speak freely? A critical body blow / were the terms of use. This is not your first cocktail / at the fair. Keep in mind that constantly updating the tracking number will not speed up the delivery of your package. Be warned: you have reached / your spillage. This was a donation meant to enable you / to strengthen your Very Fragile Fuckery / appreciate your pelvic floor (which went largely unnoticed by our readers). You signed up for it.
We can offer you: / two kinds of warmth. They are both in talks with / air traffic control. Your action isoverdue / It is sinking
Sorry for the delay. The paper said / it was only a handgun, which gave the mother some comfort, hunting shrines. She found them everywhere—in vibrant salads / at towering elevations / in landslide warnings / in disappeared spoons (returning to her as they did) / the frozen aisle in supermarkets / when surrounded by colossal pines / at the foot of his bed where she laid his bolo ties. He had no angel, you see. Or super-yacht.
I’ve been thinking about / the five things we may or may not know about / the brink. I can’t stop imagining / building makeshift mountains
Hi. Today we’re listening to / “Feelings.” Also on rotation / a slow strobe. Some advice: meet me tonight in Atlantic City? If things go wrong: refresh / reveal yourself / in regular pulses. Our radars will find you
Hi. I’d like to return the following items: The Long Strange History of Games in Texas Backrooms / the arc of a missile / the sweetness of the substitute / wanting to replicate how I felt / Keeping on Climbing in Texas / these makeshift mountains / the choice of three directions / these graduation gifts / the cumulative weight of my bedding / your uncle who does yoga / these cherrystones / the weak wash of tomorrow’s sky
Dear madam we will do our best to accommodate you but / in the kitchen frenzy / in order to be a vital part / of being accidentally / a meta-season / a hot deal / a realworld elation, we reserve the right to cancel any orders containing pricing errors or / the act of stumbling. Holding the past close is / a sort of scar tissue / a floating island / we cannot redeem
I understand. The meadow continues to love / a warmth too early. I’d like to move in
Please be patient. No one wants to come back to the office. Countless people feel the paintings of cypress trees / and fifteen of our best looks / lied to them. Here are the topics in preparation for uncertainty: Waterbirds Were Ongoing / Letters to Loved Ones During Inundations / Montana Bans Uncertainty. It seems your Twelve Tapered Candles have been incorrectlylabeled. Your bougainvillea has been flagged
I’m sorry for my quiet. It happens in the margins, in my syntax errors, when tunneling through my bedding. Please understand it’s freezing here / in the huge pool of restaurant reviews I saved for us / in the shade where we picked at the grass / where we left off / our cadence
Dear treasured. We were unable to return / back to your hands the following items: heat radiating off skin / other people’s deodorant / your new sharp light. This email was sent to you by / a captive audience. We strongly believe your work deserves: a spiral staircase / a fifth season.
We sincerely hope you will continue to share / your specific mouth / your trembling forth / with your friends to receive / 7% of the time / failures in coding. The plane crashed / no matter how off-putting it was / to others. We appreciate your understanding at this time.
Thank you as always for / your fugitives / your scattered buttons. One day you will find your cart contains / only the things you came for / more truly,
Thank you. My parcel of Twelve Tapered Candles has been received / on the other side of the lake. It’s a good thing we speak / across many rivers. It turns out the whole world depends on: the owl’s flight / butter-yellow.
It helps to remember it is never / a cold case. The last days when someone goes missing are likely to become / uncomfortably hot. Struggling for air, they have been found everywhere / without saying goodnight
Dear SirMadam. Sunday steals from Monday. We are behind schedule and unable to process / your varying skies. On this day you are / growing blue.
Did it fall on you?
Hi. Declines in sleep and nightingale numbers. Also, I tried to seize two dark rooms. More soon
Are you still here? You have items left in your cart. Some of our members went / fossiling alone / reckoning with their grocery lists. Have you left something behind? The meadow shows you / fluttering off. You have viewed the meadow three hundred times. Y/N?
I am still here. I have relocated the bristlebirds. This is / my new meadow. The meadow shows us / the spine of the long leaf / the borders of wider.
I wish you could see it. I wish for anyone who goes through their days / a decade and a half later / when they are perished for air / and have subsequently / become stars—keep asking it anyway. Keep asking the meadow / hand-feeding the blades. Maybe you’ll discover / an enormous happiness.
Goodbye, darling. Stars are born / at the end of my bed. I almost drowned / waiting for the umbra. We were always here / even in our parcels of sun.
How long have we been spilling over?
How long have we been kissing?
This poem’s title is a riff on the title of Wordsworth’s poem “The World Is Too Much With Us”
“spine of the long leaf” is an A. E. Stallings phrase from her piece “Halcyon Days in the Saronic Gulf” which appeared in a London Review of Books subscriber email on January 14, 2023
“radio gewgaws and whatnots,” “very beautiful fragile coffee table,” and “spoiler alert: the very best stuff is gone, but some quality stuff remains” are from Jennie Josephson’s post on an email listserv, inviting members to collect “a piece of radio history” from her late father Larry Josephson’s Upper West Side studio
Jaye Kranz is a poet, writer, and award-winning documentary audio maker. Her poems have appeared in West Branch, The Florida Review, Best of Australian Poems, Foglifter, The Marrow, and Frozen Sea. Occasional nonfiction in The Monthly. Audio work on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, ABC Radio National. jayekranz.com
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