Inheritance

By BRIAN SIMONEAU

 
Watch where now we walk: city shuttered from its own
past, abandoned tracks replaced with mulch and gravel
 
trails coursing through a park of imported forest
the way original sin veins every future.

 
Given choice, let’s follow the snake who understood
nothing’s good as its promise, every deception
 
possible only when still we fail to notice
what stink survives beneath the shine, still so willing
 
to lose ourselves to bliss. See: each path leading in
also leads out, exile the end of every road.

 

 

[Purchase Issue 19 here.] 

Brian Simoneau is the author of the poetry collection River Bound. His second collection, No Small Comfort, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2021. His poems have appeared in Boston Review, The Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Four Way Review, The Georgia Review, Mid-American Review, Salamander, Third Coast, and other journals. Originally from Lowell, Massachusetts, he lives near Boston with his family.

Inheritance

Related Posts

The parthenon in Nashville

March 2024 Poetry Feature: New Poems by Our Contributors

MATT DONOVAN
On my flight to Nashville, after / telling me the Parthenon in his town was far better / than the one in Greece, the guy seated beside me / in the exit row swore that Athena was an absolute / can’t-miss must-see. Her eyes will see into your soul, / he said, no goddamn joke.

picture of a bible opened up

February 2024 Poetry Feature

CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON
There was tear gas deployed without a tear. There were / rubber bullets fired from weapons that also fire lethal rounds. There were / armored vehicles steering through the streets of the capital that stars our maps. // What we saw was only new to the people it was new to.

Headshot of Anne Pierson Wiese

Sharp Shadows

ANNE PIERSON WIESE
On our kitchen wall at a certain time / of year appeared what we called the sharp / shadows. / A slant of western light found / its way through the brown moult of fire / escape hanging on to our Brooklyn rental / building for dear life and etched replicas / of everything