look at the time

One of the poetry collections I got from my wonderful Room of One's Own poetry subscription last year was Kiki Petrosino's Witch Wife (2017), which I actually posted the title poem from a couple of years ago. There are poems in the collection that aren't villanelles, but also I fucking love villanelles. Villanelles!

We'll have to hurry if we want to get started.
It's high time to consider beginning at all.
Time, at least, to think about starting

to start. After all, we've only just gotten up
& running, but now? We're almost too late.
We'll have to hurry. If we want to get started

we'll have to start now. We'll have to work
round the clock, round the clock, round the—
Well. Let's think about starting, at least. Though

it's tougher than ever. We can't even begin
to explain what it's like. To start with, we know
we should want to hurry. At least, we're starting

to want to. That's almost too tough to say
at the start. Still, we're sure we'll begin any moment.
It's time to get started we think. Let's consider

getting up & running. By then, it'll just sort of start
& we'll have begun. Zut alors! It's a plan & a party!
It's just—we should hurry. If we want to get started
we better begin. But it's tough. Just look at the time.

—Kiki Petrosino, "Ought" from Witch Wife, 2017. Huge mood, am I right?

our enemies' spectacular deaths

Happy Easter, especially to all my witch wives.

I’ll conjure the perfect Easter
& we’ll plant mini spruces in the yard—
my pink gloves & your green gloves

like parrots from an opera over the earth—
We’ll chatter about our enemies’ spectacular deaths.
I’ll conjure the perfect Easter

dark pesto sauce sealed with lemon
long cords of fusilli to remind you of my hair
& my pink gloves. Your gloves are green

& transparent like the skin of Christ
when He returned, filmed over with moss roses—
I’ll conjure as perfect an Easter:

provolone cut from the whole ball
woody herbs burning our tongues—it’s a holiday
I conjure with my pink-and-green gloves

wrangling life from the dirt. It all turns out
as I’d hoped. The warlocks of winter are dead
& it’s Easter. I dig up body after body after body
with my pink gloves, my green gloves.

—Kiki Petrosino, "Witch Wife" from Witch Wife, 2017.