SurVision Magazine / Isaac Wheeler

The Sessions

Of the columned clouds,
the simplest plays hospital
behind the window
and the cards. They make me name
the hospitals on them;
they ask is this church,
mosque or synagogue?
Is this strawberry, radish, or
artichoke? I name them.

I play like the names
are serious, sometimes so well
that I forget they aren't,
like when a cloud's so long
you can't see behind it,
and, briefly, it seems
to be the whole hospital,
till bluely, from behind,
the true hospital shows.

Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler is a poet and translator from New Hampshire. His work has appeared in journals including the Peacock Journal, Trafika Europe, and Two Lines. He has also published his translation of Mesopotamia, a novel by the Ukrainian poet and fiction writer Serhiy Zhadan (Yale University Press, 2018).

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An international online magazine that publishes Surrealist poetry in English. Issue Four ISAAC WHEELER The Sessions Of the columned clouds, the simplest plays hospital behind the window and the cards. They make me name the hospitals on them; they ask is this church, mosque or synagogue? Is this strawberry, radish, or artichoke? I name them. I play like the names are serious, sometimes so well that I forget they aren't, like when a cloud's so long you can't see behind it, and, briefly, it seems to be the whole hospital, till bluely, from behind, the true hospital shows. Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler is a poet and translator from New Hampshire. His work has appeared in journals including the Peacock Journal, Trafika Europe, and Two Lines. He has also published his translation of Mesopotamia, a novel by the Ukrainian poet and fiction writer Serhiy Zhadan (Yale University Press, 2018).
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