By Jacqueline Waters, from Commodore, which will be published next year by Ugly Duckling Presse. Waters is the author of two previous volumes of poetry, including, most recently, One Sleeps the Other Doesn’t (2011).
The way to do history
Is not to care about it
Whatever you care for you diminish
Facts remain the same, changing with the day
While what is true of one repeats
By turning true of another
Everywhere the sound of crying
Neither immediate nor interesting
Unlike you, with those low goals
You’re not just going to overflow toward
You’ve got to list the ambitious pains
Persevere through the doubt you watch
Take inventive forms like clouds
Owing the world a form
