What Belongs to Whom

This time you wake up like a sweater
borrowed too long from the poem.
The half-beauty of every friend
and the other half of their uninhibited names
on loan.

I want what I want but it wants me to want
and that isn’t as much fun.
See also: how colors go to night,
take their sweaters off,
ask about recent growths on their chests.

Sense organs are turning on each other
making jokes at each other’s expense.
The system points back to the hole in itself
which is pointing. They call this roadsign or ethics.

If you don’t mind my saying, I think
we need to remember what belongs to whom.

Open-mouthed, I erase my debt
to moonlight and let the years
return to me.


Mike Bagwell

Mike Bagwell is a form of mutual antagonism towards the sky, a writer, and software engineer in Philly. He received an MFA from Sarah Lawrence and his work appears in Poetry Northwest, Action Spectacle, The Texas Review, ITERANT, Sprung Formal, Heavy Feather, HAD, Tyger Quarterly, Annulet, and others. Recent chapbooks include Poem of Thanks: A Court of Wands (Metatron 2025), A Collision of Soul in Midair (Bottlecap), and micros from Ghost City and Rinky Dink. He runs the Ghost Harmonics reading series in Philly. Find him at mikebagwell.me, @low_gh0st, or playing dragons with his daughters.

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To Agree

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Small Town Skin