Paul Hostovsky
of America, my daughter
has written above the map
of the lower forty-eight,
transposing two letters,
forgetting to cross one t,
the map itself colored in
a little sloppily, dark crayon
spilling in from Mexico,
and bleeding into Canada,
and how perfect is that?
Paul Hostovsky’s poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!). His new collection is Perfect Disappearances (2025).
You have a blessed day too,
I said, and floated out of there
with my coffee and corn muffin,
feeling blessed, beatific, positive-
ly numinous. But now
she says it every time I go in there—
no variation, no shift, no turn.
She just hands me my change
and tells me to have a blessed day—
always bles-səd, never blest, never
a grateful day, an exquisite day,
an applesome day. A failure
of the imagination is what it is.
And it has begun to bother me.
So much so that I have stopped
going there. I miss their divine
muffins. Their heavenly coffee.
But those blessings had a facile, unctuous,
churchy aftertaste. I’d almost rather
have a nice day. Or even a bad one.
Paul Hostovsky’s poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!). His new collection is Perfect Disappearances (2025).
It feels so good
to throw stuff out,
toss what’s unneeded,
which is just about
everything as it turns out,
declutter the rooms,
consolidate the stanzas
into one tiny poem
about spaciousness.
Paul Hostovsky’s poems appear and disappear simultaneously (ta-da!). His new collection is Perfect Disappearances (2025).