Polly Conway
Today I swam past
a duck feather
just barely levitating.
Will it absorb liquid and sink,
or remain buoyant?
I found this online:
That depends on the condition
of the feather. It will float
as long as the integrity
has not been violated.
Oh, okay. In that case.
Tell me more about violation.
Tell me more about the bends
and drowning in air.
Because all I can think of
is how weird Barry Keoghan’s
hair looks for the Beatles movie.
Boom, deflection!
All I can see is served
by the algorithm.
Scottish folds and their mothers,
removable lighting
for renters, those strawberries
that cost like fifty bucks.
Olend bags and probiotic bears.
Hello Fresh.
I tear a too-big piece of lettuce,
chug Crystal Light, continue to care
about the condition of the feather,
kept afloat for now by the innate courage
of objects. You can’t drown
this one.
Polly Conway holds an MFA in Poetry from California College of the Arts, who’s now based in Alameda, CA. She has appeared in One Art, Jelly Squid, 400 Words, Tellus, Monday Night, and others. She is the Poetry Editor at Nulla, a multimedia journal based in San Francisco. Polly also founded the East Bay Dipping Society, an open water dipping collective.
