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# "Sideward & Leisurely Crumbles the Heart’s Presidio" by Michael Robins
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/sideward-leisurely-crumbles-the-hearts-presidio-by-michael-robbins/
- Published: 2014-07-23T13:02:22.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:10.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Michael Robins for his series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Joe Pan
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Michael Robins for his [series](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers. For those interested in submitting work for possible publication, email 3–5 poems, with a cover letter, in a single Word document or PDF to poetry \[at\] hyperallergic \[dot\] com.

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![Fox-Mouse_Belt_web_MarkManders](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/fox-mouse_belt_web_markmanders.jpg)

Mark Manders, “Fox/Mouse/Belt” (1992) (collection the artist, courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery)

## Sideward & Leisurely Crumbles the Heart’s Presidio

To what do I owe the pleasures of meddling life  
croaking the AM hubbub of sunlight, trees  
& dozers bully every which way. I trust  
I startled spiders, or rats or there but a tower,  
not its tank, so I concluded some smolder  
before bed. High in my daughter’s room  
I see now shadows of our house, cascading days  
interested in being ceramic at windows  
or to spring the spyglass. Inside most things,  
it’s matter like perspective, reminds me of

more perfect ways to receive the fox, spotted  
with my right as my left hand steals the one  
who loves: he wears fabulous clothing, he’s often  
impressioned & say, those aren’t rabbits in the yard.  
…Those are grommets, are charlatans slipping  
ice into lemonade & the porcelain polished  
for charm, licked for my doctor’s many needles  
construct a someone who wasn’t. There,  
did you go out likewise or count the tiled night  
here, taking that better aim on the voice

owned by a friend? This one belongs to you, holds  
muscle & grace while the rest are awkward bone.  
Once upon a time, Uh-huh, & in the end I  
knew you had a brother, that the heart sails  
& some find barreled whiskey & the priesthood  
no different whatsoever. Actually, we  
shudder now in different costumes, banks  
swelling every corner & my voice belongs not  
to a rich person. Behind the bottles they put candles  
to make them, make them, Sure, I’ll have another.

I’m not going to sing because I could, I’m not  
singing because I cannot describe beauty  
as sex or five blokes in the seat of a cab. There’s no  
experts among them, but fashion is as fashion  
does, walking the rumpus with sightlines  
down. Even the owls seem like rhetoric bleached  
& flossed, real songs saying how little we care,  
what a young person’s world, like, early-twenties  
this is. From my daughter’s room I see shadow,  
see house, see you later. I’ve gone some other way.

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Michael Robins is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently *Ladies & Gentlemen* (Saturnalia Books, 2011) and *In Memory of Brilliance & Value* (Saturnalia Books, 2015). He teaches literature and creative writing at Columbia College Chicago. For more information, visit [www.michaelrobins.org](http://www.michaelrobins.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com).