Perhaps I’ve gotten poetry wrongI was thinking underfoot                   built for the agoraBut it’s also of the study isn’t it – also dense –xxxxxWarm rooms in winterxxxxxNotes in the marginsI think I was forsaking metaphor because I thought it was category slippage, fun inxxxxxlife but sloppy on the page –xxxxxBriefly taking heat for a commodity – they get forsythia here?xxxxxBut it’s notxxx it’s a glut –Or poetry that’s focused on the bands inside the solidsInterior where nothing happily consistsArsenic and bismuth and antimonyThe Beatles – The Turtles – The SupremesA poetry of line breaksYes and lovingValved carotid shunting structures is a way to goI prefer a chatter not quite cognitive though lately I can hear it coming – the chatterxxxxxin my head is period styleThat on the Northeast Regional there should be this Danish houseThat strobing light through branches make me seizeDoped conduction                    ready for the long haulIt’s almost summer and I’m coming home

  For J.H. Prynne

____Chris Nealon lives in Washington, DC, and teaches at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of two books of poems, The Joyous Age and Plummet, as well as two books of literary criticism. His poem The Dial will be published by The Song Cave in March 2012.For Open Letters Monthly's poetry submissions policy, click here.