Exercise 8 (12/4/00 AM)

By Catherine Wagner Catherine Wagner

Raise up your back like an insect on the face of the nation

He took Miss Mousie on his knee, O say

little mouse will you marry me?

Getting hair cut this morning illegally

I can’t afford it

Fourteen fifteen I depend on you and roiling unlap this morn

The mind refrigerated all night

Now to clarify the broth skim off the oil & swallow it is your oil

I must have it shorter so it grows longer in unison

A glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gazed on with wonder

and tears

Catherine Wagner, “Exercise 8 (12/4/00 AM)” from My New Job, published by Fence Books. Copyright © 2009 by Catherine Wagner. Reprinted by permission of Catherine Wagner.

Source: My New Job (Fence Books, 2009)

Biography

Catherine Wagner’s collections of poems include Nervous Device (2012), My New Job (2009), Macular Hole (2004), Miss America (2001); and a dozen chapbooks, including Imitating (Leafe Press, 2004). She has performed widely in the U.S., England and Ireland; her poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in Abraham Lincoln, Lana Turner, New American Writing, 1913, How2, Cambridge Literary Review, Soft Targets, Action, Yes, and other . . .