A Poem by Liam O’Brien

Author: Poetry Editor

January 30, 2019

This week, a poem by Liam O’Brien.

Companion Poetica

Set you down first:
acres of frost
then: acres of thaw

then: both of us
live under the law.

You came up in a green land
shoulders high
over the sea.

I had some green men
to crow over me.

We will set it down
and make bread
and pay the rent:

neither one of us
will be president.

——

LIAM O’BRIEN grew up on a small island outside Seattle. He has recent work in New South and Electric Literature, and is a co-founder of Vetch: A Magazine of Trans Poetry and Poetics. He received his MFA at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop.