Poetry Breakfast

The Most Intimate
by Robert Okaji

How that blue turns gray over green
at a slight tilt of the chin,
and even upside down
anchors the tree.

Some constellations escape language,
stars looming without nouns and adverbs,
the utterances of the planets
caught in the gravity
of their own situations.

Laugh, but the trashcan is full. The lawn is brown.

There are no gods.

Unadorned statements abound.

Even this sky may shift again,
the most intimate twist
turned full.

About the Poet:  Robert Okaji lives in Texas and occasionally works on a ranch. He holds a BA in history, and once won a goat-catching contest. The author of five chapbooks, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, Panoply, The Lake, Literati Magazine, Slippery Elm, and elsewhere.

Latitude

Sometimes it’s enough to know
that a chicken preceded this egg,

that some crossed the Atlantic,
and others, yes, the road. Perhaps

I am too enamored of this fondness
for imprecision, never certain where

evening ends in your latitude,
where morning begins in mine,

but I’ve come to appreciate, late in
life, the finer points of egg cookery,

the beauty of basting with olive
oil, three ways of poaching,

and the tender art of scrambling.
This is of course metaphor, and

not. The truth is seldom so simply
derived. You hold the egg. I

offer salt. Your pan. My butter.
We both bring the heat.

About the Poet:
Robert Okaji lives in Texas with his wife, two dogs and some books. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in riverSedge, Otoliths, Steel Toe Review, Panoply, Posit and elsewhere, and may also be found at his blog, https://robertokaji.com.

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