My comforts drop and melt away like snow
I said but there was no one there, no there
to speak of just an ear receiving
and receiving certain measures from
measures from afar, dah-dit, the tempo
arranged to send out syllables repeating
a pattern, fallen sticks, one still walking
it back waving it off, joking, ceding
ground to calm her, trying to, the major
concession under the minor being
that there’s a place for fire in this house
or you might say this house is a place
for fire, or you might say that fire
is the place that bodies each relation
in this house, and only later, other
rooms you early one morning window dim
not moving but growing knowing hear
the voices darkly from those years ago
of what it was, another story
consuming them as each one played their part
befalls of families good deal, to read
the days and days without generic hints
impossible, you cannot not interpret
table settings mom dad sister brother
the stuff of drama heaps a substance, bone
for fracture of genre, each element
behaving differently at once, of course
many go on vacuuming the floors
for years and that may be what years are for
but one of the sequels that got to me
was distance at an early age, the kindest
device he gave, I should have taken more
fathers often make a pact with doorways
mine from every embassy, procession
signals exit, as any man who tries
can see how small, how few the scenes contain
my friend the Fool is welcome to it all
the best I saw interpreted by one
one Michael Bryant near the end of time
and acting jobs, his voice a boot on gravel
oddly jocund, a sign the fellow’s free
already of hope, on equal terms
I stream the movie over and over
to see the coxcomb fluttering to Kent
the rest on VHS, the tatters of
his work in libraries, it’s up in smoke
because he never rose to be a star
I stream, redecorating the chateau
France is having the walls and drapes redone
I choose the patterns, all new patterns
what, I don’t deserve a tiny piece of
nothing much? that stars blink out is known before
but smell no fault in this duality,
our traded lines, our skill, the burning pushed
below thereby do I condone the whole
or why he could eviscerate the king
with something of my energy, who sees
her parent all the way around
truth’s a dog must to kennel, whip held up
the long hand on the clock at home, or short
or mismatched cutlery, no love without
the quiet tick, explosion in the wings
sweeping up again the implications
it takes a lot of practice, rehearsals
as if the name of discipline could make
it make a home, perfecting there my own
accommodations, not a word to France
the nights without a word then wake to ask
permission to be daughter, deference
a code, fort-da, forgive me this my virtue
her lines a poor man’s prayer and chiefly the
asides, soliloquy where scarce a bush
for miles, the pace he rides it sarcasm
expresses and extinguishes at once
too much to do and I do all the work
unheard of hope, it’s only true as if
I were cliff ’s notebook, mine the steepest part
the lines so true I keep them to myself
when out they go they’re instantly untrue
they’re unrelated, sort of like the years
play dumb in me, embarrassing to love
and be silent, he never was afraid
to lift a cabochon of feeling by
his fingertips to magic him our own
shadow of a piece of smoke won’t hold
as flames twitch faster than the eye can seize
like film or thought and when the story turns
you watch the king as I do, can’t believe
my dad laughs as if insults nourished him
there is no slander in an allowed fool
though he do nothing but rail but it’s the lack
of false remark ignites our interview
I’m sorry to say it, and is that true
how rude to slay by proxy, can’t you
be bothered to visit, do not I merit
like 36 hours in Picardie,
backstage I’m scribbling lyric poems
to prove there is a place where I can be
JANA PRIKRYL’s fourth book of poems, The Channel, will be published in 2026. Born in the Czech Republic and raised in Canada, she is the executive editor at The New York Review of Books.