Index of Themes

Poems about night

and related poems. Paintings

            about night,

sleep, death, and

                        the stars.

I know one poem from

school under the stars, but

belong to no school

            of poetry.

I forgot it by heart. I remember only

it was set in the world and its theme

            parted.

 

Poems

about stars and

how they are erased by street

lights,

            streets

in a poem about force

in the schools within it. We learned

all about night in college,

            how it applies,

night college under the stars where we

            made love 

a subject. I completed my study of form

 

            and forgot it.

Tonight,

            poems about summer

 

and the stars are sorted by era

over me.

            Also poems about grief

and dance. I thought I'd come to you

with these themes

            like my senses.

Do you remember me

from the world?

            I was sat there and we spoke

 

on the green, likening something

            to prison, something

to film.

            Poems about dreams

like moths about streetlights

until the clichés

            glow, soft

glow of the screen

comes off on our hands,

            blue prints on the windows.

How pretentious

            to be alive now,

 

            let alone again

like poetry and poems

            indexed by

cadence is falling about us while

parting. It was important to part

yesterday

 

            in a serial work about lights

so that distance could enter the voice

and address you

            tonight.

Poems about you, prose

poems.

Bibliographical info

Lerner, Ben, "Index of Themes" from The Lights. 2023, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Griffin Poetry Prize 2024 Finalist. Used with permission from The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.

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