Reliance on Light

I love the way varnished wood
seems more alive 

than dead.
It relies on light,

even on overcast days like today.
I love the notions of exile

and fool’s gold.
Each relies on bodies in motion 

and misconceptions
about the value of seeing 

figures in the distance
with clarity and a willfulness 

that muddies the same.

Childless 

The world is strange
and crusts  

up like old batteries.
I am childless 

but channel
my paternal instincts  

into recycling.
I cradle plastic bottles 

in my arms.
The world dates its own 

destruction for a while,
but they end 

up as friends.
I cling 

to bad ideas,
but they always wiggle free.

Bathers #16

You wander around this fantastic world,
but I stay here 

letting it come to me by degrees.
It cools my feet. 

I am no longer full of screams,
but I have not 

yet settled down.
There is a difference between a bay 

and a sound,
a memory and a reliving.  

The bathers never question their beliefs
in water, 

and though the landlocked never question
the leaves, 

they question whether they
are the tree 

or the rake.     

Author’s Biography

Glen Armstrong (he/him) holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters. His poems have appeared in Conduit, Poetry Northwest, and Another Chicago Magazine.