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"With or Without You" • U2 (by Danielle McMahon)

Midsummer is silver and this night,


we pinball!


the headlights!


—the stars!


hardboiled and brimming with pink-eyed sincerity 

sap heavy in our bellies and no place to go


we pinball!


careening and shrugging guardrails

that hungry lovesong from the karaoke 

crackling silverstatic in our skulls ‘til 


you tilt


you tilt! 


your neck out the cab window and howl

the only words you know :


and you GIVE

and you GIVE

and you GIVE YOURSELF AWAY


and your voice is like catgut on catgut 

your larynx is an hourglass rasping mic-checks, echoing

the desperate grit of cicada cycles, cuz you remember Angela,

sweet Angela and O


Her arms


Her arms!


like rivers!

 

tributaries to heartchambers but, baby, 

this is our story—

the stars know nothing of us,


our tedious dedications



Danielle McMahon has poems in Vilas Avenue, Free Verse Revolution, Alice Says Go F*ck Yourself, and elsewhere. She is editor of the engine(idling, an online litmag. Instagram @dehm000.

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