PETER JAY SHIPPY

Alphaville

36

Larval karmahatmas
jot in Hindi.

Ganesh favors
elephantine delicacies—

Cheetos, Bonkers.
An ascending bindi

clarifies daybreak, each
face greets Holi.

In Jonesboro,
kindling longhorns

make no onerous promos.
Quixotic ranchers

spit Tabasco,
urging Vishnu, “Waken.”

42

A beach—
Caribou Dunes—

each face
generates

hindsight.
I just keep

longing.
Muskies

nuzzle off
platform

quays.
Rib-caged sterns

turn
unaccountably violet.

Peter Jay Shippy is the author of Theives' Latin (University of Iowa Press). His new work will appear in American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, and Verse, among others. Other sections from the Alphaville suite can found online in 42Opus, eratio, and Word For/Word.

Peter Jay Shippy teaches at Emerson College in Boston.