Speech



Now for the outburst of time’s haha.
Pause for a pas de deux.
Something softly of the weather softly thrills.
Pre-rain pressing the event.
Unexpected guest, how’s umbrella like a tent?
Handheld circus, just kidding, her gown.
Or corset gets at it, you get it, sweat in it.
Nothing’s ever washed off.
Join hands, just kidding.
I can’t anymore.
Little girl I carried, I can’t anymore.
Leftover hors d'oeuvres at the threshold,
many caterers say.
Petrichor’s something they don’t.
Promise me I won’t.
Cutting a Rum-Tum-Tugger,
a real figure,
a Don Juan with tics. He is!
Her I’d known doughier.
Woman, what have I to do with we?
Though if you got to go,
I got to too.
Said I wouldn’t anymore.
O my life of woe and woo.
Of he and she.
If you got to go, I got to too.
I got you new gutters, got you new-shine
plans for a septic tank.
Cousin Jaime laid them.
Thanks.
Game of my favorite girl: what have I got?
Firstly the verses come papering gold.
What did I ever have, what will I give?
When I put away childish things.
Of champagne, chantilly’s
a goose in the rain
and a chaperone bumming its curve.
I mean a limp minister.
Wristing its ligature.
Everything always comes out.
Addled, embattled, and at it again?
Canopy wherever, whenever you can.
Sing.
Put away childish things.
Don’t ask about baby oil,
it’s obvious.
Only know in part.
Don’t leave the eye-gouger out.
Remember all roads lead to roaming,
all beds end with bends. You get it.
Always do what I wouldn’t do,
always feint a bit with a flute.
I love you.
Suffer long, never lie.
Never lie on your feet. Abide.



Chloe Bliss Snyder is a poet from upstate New York and a current MFA candidate at Boise State University. Her recent work can be read in The Chicago Review, SARKA, Copenhagen, and Antiphony. Her chapbook Ekho & Narkissos was published by The Swan and its recording can be heard on PennSound. Her first full-length collection of poetry, The Panther and Other Poems is forthcoming from Ornithopter Press.