No. 41 Summer 2023

Paula Cisewski What Was Your First Concert?

My first concert was a red leaf
My first concert was waiting for a ghost in the woods
Or the tiny motor that runs your love

Once I was addicted to absence
Thief of everything green
Batting at nothing that’s visible to me

My first concert was a cricket in a matchbox
A chorus of masking and unmasking
So loud you didn’t have to think

Horn section swaying in sharkskin
My first concert was the treeline’s
sunset impression smeared on the mirror

of the river and the current a goodbye underneath
A song from memory comes on the radio and time’s
accordion squeezes in or the door slams

shut on the moment and everything goes white
I was singing along to stay alive
My first concert was a hammock swaying greenless leaves

How is it you make me want to repeat everything, everything
My first concert was seeking a second heartbeat
Unapologetic, undaunted by a missed leap


Paula Cisewski’s fourth poetry collection, Quitter, won the Diode Editions Book Prize. She’s also the author of The Threatened Everything, Ghost Fargo (Nightboat Poetry Prize winner, selected by Franz Wright), Upon Arrival, and several chapbooks.