Dana Jaye Cadman
—
Plagues
What ugly? Told the God the little frog
and bowing. Told the designs of Saturn
infinite space and breaking aether. Ruin
too oblivious, too simple where there's
the alternative of explaining each high
sophistication in the mellow unraveling.
Aware that the planets look circled due
to our own limited sense. Asked the God
by the man who had wanting. Two because
more felt selfish. Ugly the judgement
of those with ideas. Brains to maneuver
in dimensions not to undo them. Love,
what a reduction. A statue of a princess bust
hiding her arms and mistaken for virtue.
In this iteration of knowing: holes
so attractive all far forms bend
without conscience. Aren't I so gravity?
Slow, time becomes organic and I am
amphibian and brass and also never.
Out in the weather I go verdigris green.
When there's no romance, there's still
equation. When is a flawed questionword
supposing a touchable order; Why
demands thought in the math. Don't ask
at all, small water-creature. Be mud,
and climbing up. Be clay, pretty for desire.
Circle Theory
Something in the mind what doesn't
Prove a circle, a regret
For concrete things. All of our sad
methods of guesses. Early on
We gathered facts. Laid on our backs
And saw things and didn’t need to grasp them
Repeating all our eaches. It’s the origin of us.
Always was the how do we gather
This menagerie up to keep,
Always the attempt to bend to shape
Where really there’s twisting. We build
We plead for every vortex
To flatten and carefully press
All idea into a red coin.
Say the universe
Doesn't expand. Say it plays dress up.
Turns from its own bedroom mirror
Always and always in new sequins in its
Game of layered masquerade. Say instead
A great vast foreverness casts its bright
Silhouette on the present. A mechanism
for what we can't keep in our hands.
The more basic the circle the more yes.
Say tower. Say line. Say inde nite falling.
Say I both forget and never knew.
Say something what it doesn’t prove.
Dana Jaye Cadman is an Assistant Professor and Director of Creative Writing for Pace University, Pleasantville and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University, Newark. Work appears in The Saturday Evening Post, New England Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Conduit Magazine, and elsewhere. More at danajaye.com
© Bear Review 2025
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Site Design + Build
October Associates
