“A Priori,” “Signs of Something,” “Zero-Sum”

“A Priori,” “Signs of Something,” “Zero-Sum”

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A Priori

The first time I saw St. Peter's

magnificent marble and lack of time-

pieces, I dismayed my travel

 

partner with an obvious observation;

a trifling truism: that it reminded me of a casino

welcoming the hopeful riff-raff

 

with the promise of an opulent eternity

starting now, with a small investment,

 

or a bank rank with hidden treasure:

stalwart, forbidding, secure.

 

They say the good borrow, the great steal,

and what good are institutions if not great

at admonishing members to transactional rewards

 

(that which might be called stealing if the righteous

can indeed be cheated), couched, or not, in morality,

transcendent, or not, of human                                                          mortality?

 

And archetypes, those cosmic eggs,

(pre-)exist for the taking: timeless

equal opportunists.

 

Back in college I regaled my boyfriend

with a proud Freudian interpretation

of Hamlet and he winced and grimaced

to explain that was impossible,                         sweetie,

 

because Shakespeare

came first, long dead

before he’d have had a chance

to study (future) Freud

 

as if they weren’t both sons of Eve

that pagan who lived outside,

until the paradisical world

split between casino

and cathedral

left us to buy

our way back

Signs of Something

Stop telling us

how lovely

you used to be,

your long hair

in the moonlight

like a beacon

seeking its own

becoming.

We need to hear

about gravity's

magnetic charm

pulling you

to the center

as another dawn

is rising and you

with it. There is no end

to such expansiveness.

This morning

you are the brightest

thing in the universe

and all of us will remember

the long forever shadows

of your aubade.

After Strand

Zero Sum

Rank's a smell we can't escape

as we set off to cancel Lincoln

due to retrospective legacy issues.

Awareness is relative. Your lesbian

daughter's skeptical in-laws whose ancestors

landed here to escape religious persecution:

villains and/or victims? We are proud to be a nation

of immigration as if that New-(to us) World were empty and begging

for our most particular animation. (It was neither-nor.) Consider

this: no one (i.e., hardly anyone) is (voluntarily) leaving here

anytime soon, like the job we all love to hate, but we owe

the company store, the only one in town, so off to work

we go, grudgingly. It's hard to keep up on a moving planet,

despite and because of social media. Whose fault

this is we know we know. It lies between

as much as within us, amongst us, a web

of broken links, scattered like fossils

waiting for us to knit ourselves whole.

About the Author

Julie Benesh

Julie Benesh is author of the chapbook ABOUT TIME published by Cathexis Northwest Press. Her poetry collection INITIAL CONDITIONS is forthcoming in March 2024 from Saddle Road Press. She has been published in Tin House, Another Chicago Magazine, Florida Review, and many other places. She earned an MFA from The Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and received an Illinois Arts Council Grant. She teaches writing craft workshops at the Newberry Library and has day jobs as a professor, department chair, and management consultant. She holds a PhD in human and organizational systems. Read more at juliebenesh.com.