from The Book of Knots
look at yourself in the mirror
so I can see something backless

before tomorrow’s
mourning

for space and hashtags
or whatever sells data now

I want to write a poem
or a fist    or an orifice

wherever the dogecoin goes
whatever locks

a jaw, forces an eye
to look both ways

make me look at myself
on the ceiling

X marks
The spot
Paul Cunningham co-manages Action Books. He is the author of two poetry collections from Schism Press: Fall Garment (2022) and The House of the Tree of Sores (2020). New writing has appeared or is forthcoming in BOMB Magazine, Texas Poetry Review, The Ocean State Review, and the anthology A Flame Called Indiana: New Writing from the Crossroads (Indiana UP, 2023). His translation of Sara Tuss Efrik's play Danse Macabre Piggies will be anthologized in Experimental Writing: A Guidebook and Anthology (forthcoming from Bloomsbury). Cunningham currently manages the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame.