Poem by Sarah Vap

“From Winter: Aphorisms”  
Drones are probably killing someone right now 


My brains have broken into a solution of babies, magnetic fields, and the microbiome: the family-animal. 


The family-animal includes also the WiFi, the sonar, the drones, the cuddle, the gun, the rage: they have all opened at all of my smallest and largest parts I.   


Opened so wide at the babies I. 


Those are gaping holes where the pressure ended, and.  


How can I live in the world with a heart wide open—it is with rage. 


How can I live in a world with this love—it is with disgust. 


How can I live in a world in which my whole microbiome must interact with the murk of naval sonar and commercial shipping—it is with contempt I. 


How do you drone a baby—it is with guns or with pinging. 


If drones are quietly bombing many countries right now. If guns are saturating we. If the war is always invisible to me I.  


If the world is warming so that holy winter will disappear, we. 


Then we don’t love our own babies. 


If Rikers is quietly putting children into solitary confinement for years. 


Then none of us is capable of love. 


The empire bends her head over her cup of coffee. 


99.9


Snow falls softly outside. I. 


In order to think clearly I need something that I can no longer have, I. 

Sarah Vap is the author of six books of poetry and poetics. Her most recent book, Viability (Penguin 2016), was selected for the National Poetry Series. She teaches in the MFA program at Drew University. 

​

---