Actuality Self-Evaluation
John Glowney
I’ve sat lotus-legged for weeks,
I’ve swept the body’s many floors,
thumbed its manuals,
untangled its nets,
offered the company of women,
taken it to outdoor basketball courts,
to carnival rides,
fed it cotton candy and weed—
and every morning
it stirs and whinnies.
*
We’re beautiful, aren’t we? We’re beautiful,
and then we waste it on afternoon &
a cup of black coffee
in a McDonald’s booth.
*
Yesterday, I replaced my heart
with a turnip. With a cannon.
A squeaky door. A porpoise.
Sand. Every other word
from Paradise Lost.
Nothing really worked.
I think I will leave
the space vacant, make it
into that spare room
where I keep all the stuff
I hate,
but can’t throw out.
John Glowney‘s poetry has appeared in Narrative, Iowa Review; Shenandoah; Catamaran, Baltimore Review, the Shore, Cloudbank, The Bitter Oleander, and other journals; a full-length collection, “Visitation” (Broadstone Books, 2022); and a chapbook, “Cold-Hearted Boys” (Main Street Rag, July 2024). His poem “Sea to Shining Sea” was the winning poem in the 2024 Able Muse Write Prize for Poetry. His new collection, “A Fish Child’s Songbook,” will be published in 2026 by Jacar Press as the winning manuscript in Jacar’s full-length collection contest. His poem “Darien Gap” recently placed second in the Crosswinds Poetry contest, and his poem “Sunday Morning” was a finalist for the 2023 Lascaux Prize for Poetry. He is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, Poetry Northwest’s Richard Hugo Prize, and the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Award. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he lives in Seattle.
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