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# "the shape of days to come" by Jess Mynes
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-shape-of-days-to-come/
- Published: 2013-01-25T17:30:25.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:35:47.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Jess Mynes for his fourth in a monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Jess Mynes
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, Joe Pan, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

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

\* \* \*

![streetwrk, "singin in the rain" (2012) (via flickr.com/streetwrk)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/01/7513320702_68ddb0018d_z.jpg)

streetwrk, “singin in the rain” (2012) (via flickr.com/streetwrk)

The question of your face  
in the mirror, loggerhead  
shrike. I’ve chosen what  
I’ve chosen, how these choices  
amount to the present, *Euphoria* 
*In a Hat*. Is rain a  
motion? no fixed  
perspective, every material  
carries in it an inherent form, gilded  
flicker. Same things in same ways,  
greater yellowlegs, lesser  
nighthawk. Your dot is  
orange. Sadness is  
a commonplace for  
realization, to resist  
the undertow long enough  
to visit the wreckage. I identify  
with the perfect  
day. Flat bottomed clouds the sun  
highlights, a kind of warped  
space, leaving the dog ear  
in draught, hillside foments  
gone to flower. Indulgence  
with a leg up on the 9-5,  
Virginian Cocktails, *Smilodon fatalis*,  
a mustached fisherman  
in the sun. Effective Immediately,  
No Plastic Flowers. Spring  
trees’ red buds litter interrupting  
sidewalk’s pneumonic grey,  
dandelions siege the  
curb*.* Life as it disappears, inherent  
in your shackles,  
inherit your shackles,  
*Tomorrow is the Question*.