> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# "Looking at Me With Magic" by B. J. Love
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/looking-at-me-with-magic-by-b-j-love/
- Published: 2013-12-30T12:00:05.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:46.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by B.J. Love for for the latest in a monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: B. J. Love
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:59 (2012, 2013, part 2)

*Our poetry editor,* [*Joe Pan*](http://joepan.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*, has selected a poem by B.J. Love for for the latest in a* [*monthly series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

\* \* \*

![(photo via Brandon Burns's Flickrstream)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/12/7946424386_6994b80bb0_z.jpg)

Brandon Burns, “Judd Sunrise” (2012) (photo via Brandon Burns’s Flickrstream)

## Looking at Me With Magic

I know a few good songs still that we can sing  
in dark and smelly places. People are telling  
me about my arms like I have never seen  
a crawfish before. Dude, they are falling from  
my shoulders. They belong there. Because they  
have always belonged there. We’ve got ground  
to cover, so let’s think about arms differently.  
Got new things to measure. New ways to win.  
I mean, I don’t know how to fly over Texas  
but I know I can. Sometimes you just have to  
truss the bridge, you know? I’m hearing more  
beautiful things through my too red ears. To say  
I love you now seems like an odd warning for  
the future. To sit on it just seems uncomfortable.  
Back to those places. We call them New Orleans.  
We call them this because our vocabulary limits  
us yet we desire a more densely populated  
specificity with an excited electorate and rich  
cultural history. I don’t give a shit what seems  
naïve. I can’t. The air is filled with warm and  
there are potholes everywhere. If we talk at  
all let’s talk about our ankles here. How we  
keep them swollen and interesting. Mosquitoes,  
(Musky-toes, says E\_\_\_\_, is a sweet pun, but  
that’s not what I wrote, I say, just how I said it)  
dangling off our feet like feelings. I know I am  
about to be the guy who takes on dancing.  
I am taking on dancing like a boat. I’m singing.  
My vessels, they are singing out catastrophe.  
You won’t believe this. You never do. But I’m not  
going down, I’m getting it. Here’s a secret. And  
here is where someone invented the cocktail.  
And here is where I wait for your hand to fall  
slowly, like any waiting, onto my purple heart.