Polaroid Ode
by Cori Winrock

Read the automated transcript.

O four cornered room
in which we tuck the ever-
developing light of our warm
bodies. O snapshot, O ether
-ized flash of childhood—swarm
of chemicals murmuring together
to form empty sky, exposing
day’s blue dissolve from blue.
O bad 70s plaid sofas
& pearl snapshirts, costumes
fading like fisher-price cars
on washed out lawns. O moon
boots without stars.
O family re-gathering as light-
seep, as grief. O ablation
& emulsion & actual moon—
you day-lurker, you—
balloon I imagine deflating
above our duplex—why the resistance?
Tell me who was in our living room
to capture this instant, whose hand
was shaking us into existence.

"Polaroid Ode" by Cori Winrock, from the forthcoming LITTLE ENVELOPE OF EARTH CONDITIONS by Cori Winrock, copyright © Alice James Books. Used by permission of Alice James Books.