It’s winter when we pull over and Troy’s still falling.
After Carson’s lecture, the cab we hailed
is a prophesy of this cab. A wife beyond pregnant,
we couldn’t make it to hospital. A slather of newborns
over cab seats at 11th and Lex. The meter running
with blood and afterbirth. New York at war
with itself, sirens and a backseat chorus baby loud
with beauty, cruelty, poetry. Hard to tell them apart.
Poem, from the Greek poiein meaning to make,
as in we make three-lined stanzas from mouthfuls
broken, fixed, then broke again. The oracle warned us:
we must save our babies from the Greek paradox of it all.
We name our daughters Anne Carson, Ann Carson,
An Carson so we can tell them apart in print
for Carson taught us Greek love is a three-way street:
the lover, the loved, and the absence of love.
Born with ruled notebooks in hand, we enter
three Annes into witness protection to save them
from our own predictions. Their names have changed,
but the given ones are still visible, leaching through
each indigo dress they wear, every page they will write.
TED MICO began his writing career in London as a features editor at the weekly music paper Melody Maker. His poetry has recently been featured in High Window Press, Ilanot Review, Lumina, Slipstream, Arboreal, T’Art, Cordite Review, Blood & Bourbon, and elsewhere. He’s edited three books of non-fiction and is a regular at the legendary Beyond Baroque poetry workshop in Venice, California
The art that appears alongside this piece is “The Land & Me #9” by JONATHAN KENT ADAMS.