The poem is from my 2020 collection titled Between Plague & Kleptocracy: Invented Poetic Creations & Conversations of Seva & Bill.
The collection cross-references poems of two dead poets: Vsevolod Nekrasov and Bill Knott, and the narrator/poet (Lina Ramona Vitkauskas) serves as medium, fusing bits of posthumous conversations and imagined collaborations between them. Vitkauskas hybridizes and recreates their texts, projecting possible dialogues during this perilous time in history: of pandemic, forced isolation, economic decline, and the US finding itself with a pack of kleptocrats and their sycophants overtaking the three branches of government.
The poem itself (below) was written in early 2020, beginning of pandemic. Special thanks to PEN America, which offered a relief grant to the author while unemployed, providing a chance to write the collection.
Poem:
My Vestibule School
National someone
future
something
sometimes
your toes
are a crystal ball
and sometimes
mini executioners
