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CVS on Fire

Michael Robbins

June 1, 2017

The CVS on fire on Fox News and the Fox News truck on fire on Fox News and the quick brown fox of the flames jumping out of the frame are one. And the night advancing behind its riot shield and the big small-town moon bobble-head bobbing outside Quicker Cash and the late-shift Liquor Locker clerk clocking the CVS are one with the eternal rock-seated being, the kingdom of one stone upon another. I want to believe there is a mammoth in the ice of a flipside America within whose filthy coat no bank can find us. My kingdom for a mammoth of heaven and flame, a many-feathered shaft-shouldered Fox News truck invisible to the police. May earth destroy CVS, may thistle and sedge and dill and dock wreck Fox. The yew is a hard tree, fixed in the earth. The earth is a hard earth. The grasslands are wrapped in black wool. The marshmallow charms and palm-twigged paternoster are yours. We’ll follow the two stars you can see from the city. This is the five-ton day of the mastodon. This has happened before. The earth is hard and rain is real and flint is cold. The flame in the rag in the gas in the bottle in the hand in the air in the future.

Michael Robbinsis the author of two books of poetry and the essay collection Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music.


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