If you were to mark iniquities,
who, O Lord, shall stand?

For with you is forgiveness;
and because of your law,

I stand by you. My soul
has stood by your word,

and your inexpert moves
on the dance floor, at dawn.

Who cares about the future?
Why choose me out of

the eye, ear, and mouth
candy of multiplicity?

I just do not understand.
Yes, he’s an asshole.

No, you aren’t helping.
Nothing is helping, now

that life has become a parody
of life. Yet you have no disgusting

wealth to reject, and I like that
about you. I like ramen

as an idea, and a meal.
I’m only human; I bleed

when I fall down. Fuck
prepositions, indefinite articles;

fuck words that only serve to link
to other words, stolid integuments

of speech, sense, desire. You should
just start printing money, you once

said to me, because I was on fire.
I was on fire because you lit me,

like an ecstatic youth might do.
Yes, now it is a controlled burn.

Yes, I love what will eventually
destroy me. Yes, I pledge allegiance

to the environmental sculpture,
soon to degrade, that is you.

Virginia Konchan is the author of a poetry collection, The End of Spectacle (Carnegie Mellon, 2018), a collection of short stories, Anatomical Gift (Noctuary Press, 2017), and two chapbooks, including That Tree is Mine (dancing girl press, 2018). Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Believer, Boston Review, and elsewhere.