A poem by Joshua Marie Wilkinson

A Song Called Theodicy

   after Cyrus Console

Why violence likes to get

unconcealed occasionally,

nightlong, & break some vessels.

You mean, the long drawn‐out

second take of the tunnel scene?

Or the scene where a child’s

encounter on the film set 

gets everybody behind

the camera to crying?

That’s not the wound

we thought long for—

Nor even the one we knew

we might have to defend.

The coils of the springs

of the theodicy of being.

Because evil’s a bad measure

of what’s happened here

& even violence can sound

pretty easy in the right mouth.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson’s recent and forthcoming books are Selenography(Sidebrow 2010), Swamp Isthmus (Black Ocean 2013), and The Courier’s Archive & Hymnal (Sidebrow 2014). Born and raised in Seattle, he lives in Tucson, where he teaches at the University of Arizona and works as an editor for Letter Machine Editions and the poetry/poetics site The Volta. More information here.