Two Poems by Louise Akers

By Louise Akers

some thanks
some memories preserve 
shared edges; us 
bearing our asymmetry, you
dogearing seams against
my thigh…

an infinite double-
bind persists: 

two things might not be equal 
but i can do the same thing
with both, i.e. 
a persistent, elliptical 
thanks. 

(i go and get them 
regardless.) 

then, below windows, you 
remembered how i’d noticed these:
no bodies but wings… 

and the wall-text became 
harder to decipher, 
and the work was given
grace beyond work—  
a tone 
of elegant refusal, i.e., not repetition 
but a literal return. 

oh bird! 

oh bird 
of little faith! 

beloveds creak 
across this line, 
here, 

agitators meet 
with proper thanks. 

oh bird, surveillant, 
i am sleepy 

but this aperture 
must widen 
now; 

agape in summer, 
i’m alighting 
now,

in fall. 

bird, bird! you see 
the proof

of my good works 
is in the breaks 
beloveds offer 
me so

gladly 
when i ask for them.  

…

you see, i am a great big poet! 
i think deep 

-ly about “forest,”
about  “awl.”

i write “beloved” 
about one who’s so
beloved! and then

i sweat
the letter princely 

through the drive. 

About the Author:

Louise Akers is a poet based in Brooklyn, NY. Their chapbook, Alien year, was selected for the 2020 Oversound Chapbook Prize, and their first full length book, Elizabeth/The story of Drone, was published in September 2022 as part of Propeller Books’ Contemporary Poetry Series. They are a co-organizer for the Organism for Poetic Research at New York University, where they are pursuing their PhD in English and American Literature.