George Bogin Memorial Award - 2021

Not, I wanted to call this testimony, to say
               evidence, one who attests, but         something yes
delicious about psalm, as in song sung to a
                              harp, that English is            the         only instance of the word
in which its p is not pronounced, which begs
               which pleads, which we removed long ago
to be more snake than path, why I thought
                              about testimony                 because I never did, and
there are degrees of abuse, and one can inter
                course without         consent and only receive a
fine, it is the third degree, psalm begins us
                              on             a         mountain, fine, because the mountain can
only watch its animals fall, its face sings to
                a string as     a        thing plummets through an
anti-scream, anti-testimony, the body as it
                              will be unseen     unlikely as              itself, as its bright
evidence of being, I say this because a story
                became clear to me, about me, the work I’ve
done on forgiveness without letting myself
                              off the hook,        a              phrase that means to unhinge
the strung body, though like most contemporary
                language it    elides the violence       in search of
more common reliefs, to be let off the hook
                              when a ride is       no            longer necessary, when an
appointment is no longer necessary, when a
                confession is, when fine,    so I am                  fueled by the complication
of shadow in a linguistic sense, in a disordered
                               sense, the story is                a           simple psalm, a p hidden
in our wet dramas the what we owe, and owe
                and oh, psalm                     as in paradigm, between balm
and bomb, answer me   when   I          call to you