Close Reading
I am honed now, enough
and gladly miming
what I would like to do
for scholars: sit and open,
page 28, lady in love—
what makes her watching
different? I like it, and
I’ll say that I like it,
when she quotes
herself in conversation.
It’s time, you might
say, for the audience
to become a crowd.
“Demoted” is your
word, if you’re still
predicting from
the balcony. The girl
opens a book, bites
the tip of her pencil
while the music
builds—the crowd
is wrong, “wrong”
being a way to dig in.
Thanks be to quotation.
Page 28, lady in lust:
I am honed now, enough,
nobody’s snail, nobody’s
leisure at the window.
I like it, and I’ll say
that I like it when
she promotes herself
more concisely than
what we suppose
after it. Years behind,
the educated guess is
when to leave
what you love to hear.
Jen Frantz currently works at a library in Ohio. Her poems have been published in Prelude and Peach Mag, and are forthcoming in Soft Punk and Ethel.