Krystal Languell

HERE’S THE COMET AT 85MM

I was cleaning out my birdhouse

Choosing to be unfriendly and clammed up

Eating a fair amount of birthday cake

Took some time to see, so far, I’m wrong

About the inevitability

The contested territory

The cat pee-scented fatigue wall

In one dream I had to play in the orchestra

In another I had to perform CPR

Sorry about the gory details

That’s just my gory life

A quibble I’d like to lodge is this—

All numbers are fractions

Maybe a confrontation in June

A different line but resurfaced

The last word I looked up was cheese

Here comes the comet, having bounds

The seal as tight as can be made by hand

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Krystal Languell lives in Chicago. Her forthcoming book A Ways Away is due out from University of Akron Press in Spring 2027. She is the author of four previous books of poetry, including Systems Thinking with Flowers (2022), selected by Rae Armantrout as the winner of the first fonograf editions book contest. In her unpaid time, she participates in dynamic resource mobilization with and for her neighbors.