Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem, every Thursday.
 

SPARE AN ORIGAMI AUTOBIOGRAPHER

 

Who am I

folding up what

 

to impress?

Simultaneous but

 

unrelated folds

that multiple hands

 

accomplish while falling

in a pile from

 

an opened, upturned

description of a book

 

yielding from carnival

barnacle (good

 

job?)

 

?

 

*

 

Is it chinchilla

(no)

 

or is it owl

(no)

 

?

 

“Thou makest darkness,”

I guess.

 

I made eyes

at a pop-up book

 

before I knew

what was what

 

once.

 

*

 

I got to where

I could fold hands.

 

Following the instructions

messed me up

autobiographically!

 

I should’ve started out

as an entomologist

too!

 

Jon Woodward‘s previous books of poetry include Rain and Uncanny Valley, as well as two recent chapbooks from The Economy Press. His newest book, The Amber in Ambrose and other poems, is forthcoming from Trnsfr Books in summer, 2023. He lives in the Boston area and works at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.

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Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx