The Mercy Seeker
He asks for my forgiveness, concerned
about the loyalties he’s divided—his questions airbrushed—
thin-skinned,
color of gas.
He’s a man-child
seeking absolution from a chalice half-empty,
an epistle lost in the mail
that gets him what, exactly? Misbegotten in a chaise
lounge; astride the back of an ass?
He asks and he is
ancient ritual, all of heaven.
But together, we’re the underworld
where his inquiry is missile & tongue—
tongue of flytrap, lion, leeching our flesh which is to say
this
and this
and—
See how mercy hangs on air, center of some gyrating current?
*
Say forgiveness. Say his is an earthly skin,
sessile. He asks for my forgiveness…
…and that missile finds its heat and cup;
the pull of the other and will you
as our days unravel like a never-perfect thing
in this Kingdom of Burn, even as we are turn, turn…..
Lynne Thompson served as Los Angeles’ 4th Poet Laureate and received a Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. In September 2024, she represented Los Angeles at the Cultural Olympiad’s Poétique Marathon in Paris. Thompson is the author of four collections of poetry: Beg No Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, Fretwork, and Blue on a Blue Palette. A lawyer by training and the recipient of multiple awards and fellowships, Thompson serves on the Boards of The Poetry Foundation, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Scripps College where she served a four year term as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of Cave Canem, a literary nonprofit organization based in New York.