Julia Bloch
APOLOGY TO LOS ANGELES

I’m sorry because winter.
I’m sorry because “Lost Angeles.”
I’m sorry because the hand is the
most versatile of instruments and even zero
is a position. I’m sorry for the
poem, I’m sorry for the email, I’m sorry
for the subject line in the email, I’m sorry
about that line about the email in the poem.
The window was open and a hard
piece of metal flew in from the street, I think
that must have been what happened, it was
just the dirty structure of everything.
In the mornings the peacocks at Hollywood
Forever walked around and around
in caged circles and I was the cat, I was the housecat.

Julia Bloch grew up in northern California and Sydney, Australia. She is the author of Letters to Kelly Clarkson (2012), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and Allison Corporation, forthcoming in spring 2015. Her poetry and criticism have appeared in Aufgabe, How2, The Volta, Journal of Modern Literature, and elsewhere. She is also a co-editor of the poetics journal Jacket2 and has taught at Bard College and the University of Pennsylvania.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #8.