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

fifteen lines in February

the gods sent me this pencil case
they drank the sea and pissed it out again
and laughed into the sky as gods will do
they make themselves easy to forget
which allows us to watch children in a carnival
parade: umbrella jellyfish, mermaids, and
my favorite boy of all: raincloud.
walking to walk, to arrive, the gods might
be napping. someone wants to make
this day of milk and coffee, someone wants
to drive into the past. getting lost is the last
privilege, the last luxury. in the streets
a radiance
as on the battlefield
at Troy

Valerie Coulton’s new book is other islands, forthcoming from Apogee Press. She’s the author of still life with elegy, small bed & field guide (above/ground press), open book, and The Cellar Dreamer (Apogee Press). She curates palabrosa, an online chapbook and interview series, and she lives in Barcelona with the poet Edward Smallfield.

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