public square
mistake blue light
for the sun already dated as agora
agony over margins and supply
in bushwick swelter and sweater
you speak like a bookseller
the same ideology
you furiously type against
caps locked to the bone
bask in parasocial gleam
i can synthesize your side
from athenaze dialogues
blue lurking in the alleys of account
i show up uninvited but hey
the discourse was never flourishing
twitter
or formerly known as twitter
has never read Foucault we have that in common
i try and fail which of these images contains
an agonized architecture proceed
via fuzzy recognition
intention loosening eye muscles so
the page loads and crumples and loads before the cut
olive branch snapped into horizon
Venya Gushchin is a poet, translator, and assistant professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Southern California. His translation of the Kalmyk poet Dordzhi Dzhaldzhireev is forthcoming from World Poetry Books in 2027. His writing has appeared in Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus; Exchanges; No, Dear; and elsewhere.