Poetry: Calvin Olsen

Calvin Olsen holds an MFA from Boston University, where he was a 2011 Robert Pinsky Global Fellow. His poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Salamander, New Haven Review, Dialogue, eXchanges, and others. Calvin recently received a scholarship to the 2013 DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portual, and gave a presentation on American poetry at TEDx New England.

 

REVERENCE

The hand I’m less acquainted with grips the steeple, tighter
near the top in anticipation of lift, and pulls.

No bodies tumble from the church’s shaking. I could have sworn
it was Sunday.

If this were real, the trees would be planted much more closely
together. I know.

I am a statue erected in a specific city with no name, cherry blossom colored
somethings fall from the sky

filling shirt pockets, palpitating slightly in the tailpipe’s toxic whisper.
Does that make sense?

Cemented to the stone that bears my name, my horse’s hooves—
three quarters unsymbolic—gather

green drips at the end of whitened trails. Note this camouflage
when the sun sets. I will freeze

unlighted in the night, what’s left of my body
holding back the stars.