in a world where you are possible | Anthony Thomas Lombardi

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5 mins read

in a world where silkworms turn
            in the wind, into moths
with prodigious hunger & no mouths, where
            you are possible even the most

                        miscreant of sinners dies
            on their knees. we grieve the bone’s imprint
                        burnished from dirt
            like the velvet depression

a lost diamond leaves behind. beloved,
            even the apocalypse is fleeting
like a bruise just shy of sinew
            you can linger as long

                        as you like but we can’t give up
            the ghost on every hill.
                        where the desert spills itself empty
            rattlesnakes need only 500 calories

a year to survive & still
            mice burrow unseen miles away
in forgotten grain. what i mean
            to say is you can’t give back

                        what you haven’t taken. may i be
            worthy of this reward—bless the broken soil
                        & all petty thieves when captured, withdraw
            my shield in a house of shattered glass.

it’s been exhausting
            remaining alive on perfect days
where evening’s strangled light pools between limbs
            swollen around each other

                        like a ribcage. when the sky opens at dusk
            a predator’s lonely rattle stirs quiet
                        as a church mouse, dust motes
            gliding in the stained glass glow

settle like misplaced planets. when you open
            your mouth, a soldier drops his sword
clean as a priest but shrewdly
            you are primed for famine, teeth bloodless

                        & frantic as a tuning fork hit the bone
            & everybody hears it
                        sing, even the light falling
            from stars already dead.

 


Anthony Thomas Lombardi is a writer, educator, organizer, & romantic in revolt. He is the author of murmurations (YesYes Books, 2025) & the founder & director of Word is Bond, a community-centered benefit reading series partnered with Brooklyn Poets that raises funds for transnational relief efforts & mutual aid organizations. He was a Poetry Project 2021-2022 Emerge-Surface-Be Fellow; has taught or continues to teach with Borough of Manhattan Community College, Paris College of Art, Brooklyn Poets, Florida State University, Polyphony Lit’s apprenticeship programming, & community programming throughout New York City; & currently serves as a poetry editor for Sundog Lit. His work has appeared in Best New Poets 2023, Guernica, Black Warrior Review, Nashville Review, Narrative Magazine, & elsewhere. He hails from Brooklyn where he lives with his cat, Dilla.