TODAY
Gross and extremely bad
Total black behind the leaves because of
The scanner
To apprehend one’s limits by means of
Realism
The awesome pleasantness of rain
ALL BLISS MUST END
Offered a little absorbent square
A
Loved Detail
Bladed glass of ice, or drawing through which
The surface appear.
From which the image withdraw.
Broken to the End of My Heart
Still square of My Heart
Until it looked like that was all
That there had been there
Lie down on beach at
Dungeness
Nothing of any kind
Mud and sea gull cries
Gray agate or black agate
Chalked
Brown stones rubbed smooth by water
Action
Lying there like dead
In the sun
Cooled by wind
Heat waves off the moderate stones, Gray cloud rising bank
Far-off blue line of
water
Sand pit til then
An animate barely laid-down head
The smoothed rocks
Move to bear weight
Convex weight
Some old wall
“OH DO NOT ASK “WHAT IS IT?””
People are talking, it’s normal
“I look straight into my heart” if there are words in there
The basic concept of a person dwelling
Hot banana
Finger hots
Yellow hots
Hot banana
Jalapeño
Banana hot
Birds too distant to me
Out there rusting or burning
The one who is alive is the one who is bleeding
You are there in your face I can see you there
Going beyond it
Now I am being in an absolved relation
I shall know you best not apart from
When I act with you
In a way not supposing
Any ground
To give these actions meaning
Yellow banana finger
Hot
Living on the ground like a bird
A certain kind of bird
Is it fine
Not being very safe
Not asking “what is it”
Kai Ihns makes poems and films mostly in Chicago. She's the author of two books of poems, most recently Of (The Elephants, 2024), several pamphlets, and a dissertation called Aspect Choreography. She edits The Year, a chapbook press.