Assigning New Memories to Familiar Places

You’re designing space furniture
that can modulate and break down

after layering nuance into a grocery
or a noodle spot in Highland Park.

You’re looking at your old kingdom
and the feelings you had for it all

in order to remake an expanse into
moveable feasts and postcard notes.

I keep my lives away from each other
if I can help it. Let the babies sleep.

I know the art of making new time—
pretending I never met myself before.

Toward Ritual

We’ll make lunch and eat honey
for dessert. You can visit on a friday

and take the full tour. You don’t know
what you’re in for. Welcome to your

next phase. In the forest, a man
leans toward you. He’s also dying.

You’ve come here for a reason.
Listen to the crickets sing.

We’re dancing all night under a canopy
of trees planted for this purpose.

Start crocheting the invitations.
We’ll invite the whole fucking town.

Jeffrey Perkins earned his BA from Earlham College and his MA in American Studies from University of Massachusetts Boston. He later studied poetry at Bennington College where he received his MFA. His poems have been published in Tupelo Quarterly, The Adroit Journal, Memorious, Rhino, The Cortland Review, The Massachusetts Review, and other journals. His first book of poems, Kingdom, was released in 2020 by Spork Press. He lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn and can be reached at jperkins44@gmail.com and on bluesky at @jeffreyperkins44.bsky.social or through his website: https://thekingdompoems.com/