24/7 we see static hyper metabolism in the right lingual gyrus low light camera noise bad signal on analog TV we see electricity every molecule pulsing with life left anterior lobe small white flecks zooming in the sky are they angels or heightened awareness of normal phenomena tell us are we mad or remarkable you don’t see what we little is known tell me symptom of what Intro to Psych how everything is static I said but people don’t notice the professor let’s talk after class you should see a doctor I was born wired wrong what I see is all I know I don’t have it so bad some of us so bad we can’t read see nothing else but the static the static is all the letters of the alphabet master pieces in museums my face in the mirror bird in the tree the tree around them both the air snow falling even when we seal our eyes at night
CIRCUMPUNCT
From inside the earth you
tunnel in the wrong direction
and go home out of habit where
you fight with your beloved over
the mess he left in the kitchen.
Does he no longer care for you?
Go outside to find the right
questions. In the garden, life is
incompletely in your hands.
This makes you equal parts god
and not god. What’s beyond
the field of vision? You can’t cut
across without the cows noticing.
Cows are small deities but are
larger than you. Curious, they
slowly surround you and you grow
terrified. Focus on the right
obsessions. There are no right
obsessions. You are under siege.
Obsessions are weeds, they thieve
all the nutrients. Wither them by
removing the sun. In the dark
walk the streets carefully, watch out
for police. Some are uneasy and grow
their strength round anger round fear.
Only difference between the evil
eye and a circle around a dot is
if you feed it. A dot is a small circle
like a cow in a field from a plane.
Some police are obsessed with
the wrong questions. This is why
in the field they wear cameras
to prevent themselves from using
unnecessary force. You wonder
when dead will you be omniscient.
Sclera round iris round pupil.
Alisha Kaplan is a native Torontonian now living in Brooklyn. She is the Web Editor for Washington Square Review and an Assistant Poetry Editor for Narrative Magazine. You can find her writing in The Chicago Tribune, Bodega, Carousel, the Best American Poetry blog, and forthcoming from DIAGRAM.