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Summer Evening, by Amorak Huey


​When it’s nice out like this
all we talk about is how it’s nice out

as if surprised
things for once

are tolerable
even pleasant

or perhaps we
merely want to seem

capable of gratitude
like when Kurt Cobain

died and defending
my taste

to a critic/friend I
proclaimed

Kurt Cobain “a musical genius”
not that I know

anything about music
or genius

but because taking a stand
felt important

in that moment
a way to say

see I am listening
to the beauty

such a twilight offers,
a way to say I am still alive.



​NEXT


Amorak Huey’s fourth book of poems is Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021). Co-author with W. Todd Kaneko of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2018) and the chapbook Slash/Slash (Diode, 2021), Huey teaches writing at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
  • Home
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    • About
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