Myronn Hardy

ODE TO DESTRUCTION

That childhood house     the two
pillars protruding up from
the porch     they are what

I see. Also     the
azaleas     mauve
as sunset. I’m afraid.

Shaking.
Your palm placid
on my shoulder.

I expect
unlove. I expect
the pillars to destroy

themselves. I expect
the red dust the car wheels
churned when leaving

my grandparents. My
boyhood gaze through
the back window. They seemed

so lonely     their green
house as green as
the willows     pines     mimosas

in their yard. I expect
my destruction. The blue pine
behind us as witness. Judge

me not as I’ve judged
myself.
Be amorous.

Be magnanimous.
You tell me     love
yet I read your love

as sporadic: hail     harvest
moon. In a lupine
field     a car choked

street     on a beach
with beached mermaids     when
we part     me from you     I’m

unsure as I walk. Behind
shaded windows     brass
locked doors     I’m

unsure of the unsure.
This is the destruction
walls     air     I     witness.

How will it
speak to me?
What will you do?

MYRONN HARDY is the author of, most recently, Aurora Americana (Princeton University Press, 2023) and Radioactive Starlings (Princeton, 2017). His poems have appeared in The Baffler, The Georgia Review, The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He lives in Maine and teaches at Bates College.