Angela Ball
Summer 2024 | Poetry
It Seems Every City
must have special access
to the sky an aerial contrivance
that revolves at different speeds
from earth
Tourists supreme empowered
take in all neighborhoods at once
overlaid with worries about a dying parent
or friend what the house sitters
might get up to
It isn’t good to go up alone
descend to an empty room
take a book’s advice
about dinner
Better to rendezvous with a friend
who identifies all statues guides us to a boite
where we sip fizzy wine eat mussels steamed in garlic
discuss the people if any we live with
When we are at home I’ll be discrete say nothing
of our infinite smallness the largess I grew to know
Angela Ball’s most recent collection of poetry is Talking Pillow. She teaches in the Center for Writers at the University of Southern MS in Hattiesburg, where she lives with her two dogs, Miss Bishop and Boy.