Headcase Economics

by Jessica Morey-Collins

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O apex of sensation O mulchy floor of anhedonia! O
polar coevolution! Not a thing is friable about you! O
panic that asks my name each second, O laughter at
change! : plaudit-offering see-saw–it’s me!–mommy’s
wrong-fallen apple, daddy’s half-gone ambition, canned
radicalism, and planned collapse, O–

how my linear digs–its peaks grip
the sky, the why blue one
that’s flung aphoristically.
Don’t ask. A laugh’s opportunity
cost twitches under a blue expanse.
Singed nerve endings synecdochic
with itch itself. Had I dug
off my skin again then perhaps
the land would have laughed right
open under. What canyon
hasn’t a clifftop? If only
this lawn would yawn deeper–I’m
peaking. The only way
to make a neighbor is to forget
how to fly–have I landed
under your grass again? No focus
for the fairer genders, and yet
my affirmations blossom
in neat rows and my lacquered toes
peak up between them–to blame
this mortal soil feels too
glib, given all this inner
landscape. The margin
widens. Why blue? God said,
“Take any place the light touches,
for example,’ and then the shadows
laughed louder–every power
outage is a ramp to the stars, and O
how those stars can rattle.