This week in the PEN Poetry Series, PEN America features a poem by Jennifer Hayashida, whose latest book, A Machine Wrote This Song, is out now from Gramma. 

 

The Pathologos

 

Make a collage

Use the advertisement for the Lamborghini

Do not leave any white space

The sheet of paper is what you take home to your parents

You must explain to your parents why you have cut up the picture of the Lamborghini

It is all right if the edges around the Lamborghini are not perfect

It is all right if you must use other pictures in addition to the picture of the Lamborghini

Do not talk on the phone while you make a collage

Do not tell your friend about last night’s party while you make a collage

How much does a Lamborghini cost?

How much did a Lamborghini cost when you were born?

Who drives a Lamborghini in the town where you grew up?

Who drives a Lamborghini in the city where you live now?

Why did you decide to move from the town where you grew up?

Do you want to own a Lamborghini?

Where did you buy your glue?

Who sold it to you?

Why are you not someone who sells glue?

How big is the sheet of paper?

Why are there no other pictures that appeal to you?

What are you looking for a picture of?

A woman? A man? A landscape? A skyline?

Why are you not looking for a picture of an endangered animal?

Why are you not looking for a picture of the President?

Why are you not looking harder to find what you want to put in your collage?

When did you become so lazy?

The sheet of paper is the sky

How often do you look at the sky when you’re not looking for an airplane?

The Lamborghini is last year’s model

Your parents always buy used cars

Your education was your parents’ decision

You wanted more white space around your education

You think the cost of a Lamborghini will be within your means

You think you and your wife will drive to your parents’ house in a Lamborghini

You cannot find a picture of your future wife

There is not enough white space around your imagination

Who will look at your collage when you are done?

Do you use logos or pathos to make a collage?

What is a logo?

What is logos?

Why did you use a logo in your collage?

Do not wear headphones while making your collage

Do not listen to pop songs while making your collage

Listen to your parents’ conversation while making your collage

Your parents are talking about interest rates

The radio sometimes talks about interest rates

There will be an interest rate if you buy a Lamborghini

If only interest rates were a gauge of your level of interest

Interest rates are rising

Interest rates make you pay more for your education than you think

There is not enough white space around interest rates

Your education is not perfect

You will probably not end up selling glue

You will probably not end up saving endangered animals

The President is not saving any endangered animals

The President is not saving your education

There is too much white space around the President

The President listens to pop songs while working

The President does not listen to his parents’ conversation

The President has two dads

Does the President use logos or pathos when he is working?

Does the President have a logo?

Your parents have a house as their logo

Your dad has his car as his logo

Your mom has her job as her logo

Your mother cleans people’s teeth for a living

Your mother’s job requires both pathos and logos

Driving a car requires more logos than pathos

Too much pathos while driving is a recipe for disaster

Driving is not perfect

Driving is making more endangered species

Your parents have two cars

What if there were only two animals left?

What if you only had two gallons of gas left?

What if there were only two cars left?

What if cars were powered by white space?

Your mother asks you what you mean by white space

Your father drives to work and feels like he’s in white space

Your father exercises more pathos than logos when he drives

Logos drives interest rates up but so does pathos

Pathos made you move from the town where you grew up

You use logos when you use glue

You use pathos when you cut out the picture of the Lamborghini

 

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Once a week, the PEN Poetry Series publishes work by emerging and established writers from coast to coast. Subscribe to the PEN Poetry Series mailing list and have poems delivered to your e-mail as soon as they are published (no spam, no news, just poems).