One Poem
by Benjamin Bartu
in which Cookie Crumble, California, is stolen land on which the claim that poetry is inherently a dissociative art sits between us like a wish
nothing you tell me
can make it true.
the moon is like an oyster,
you add in the kitchen,
frustrated and devoted
to the idea, in the whitest
of linens we turn off the light.
you say you don’t know what you’d do
if you weren’t doing this.
you go to bed
upstairs.
the city adds another floor.
its fluorescence strains
to bury the shell mounds
in the sky.
Benjamin Bartu is a poet & disability studies researcher. Associate editor at Palette Poetry, he is the author of the chapbook Myriad Reflector (2023), runner-up for the Poetry Online Chapbook Contest. His poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net, and his writing has appeared in nat.brut, Guesthouse, The Lickety-Split, Adroit Journal, & elsewhere. He lives in Oakland, California.