A Reason

Sometimes, it’s hard not to think the brain

its own best 

parasite
     / Understand that where a blade of grass ends is where the dreamscape

begins

Like some directionless,

                            spellbound balloon,

borne between solvent ohm and unresolved

omen

           /  I abandon 
like a poem this country of mine: like a pollen: like the eye: the I that never quite

marries into clarity 

                    what the body alone purports to carry 

     /  But then

you are sitting on a dock overlooking a lake, and a dragonfly lands on your knee

and there is a word,
      and through its window 
                              the thought that maybe, 

just maybe—

there is something to this whole existence thing

after all

Jake Syersak is the author of the poetry books Mantic Compost and Yield Architecture. He is also the translator of several books by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine and Tahar Ben Jelloun. His work has received funding from the PEN/Heim Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts. He currently lives in Olympia, WA.