Dan McGinn: Can you teach somebody to be funny?
Jerry Seinfeld: Nope.
—Harvard Business Review
why are you laughing
a bumble bee is giving birth
to the last of the species
sumac is raging
against the aging oaks
or are they maples
the world is limping by
river tide in out
when I least expect it
I consume use eat
burrata ripe tomatoes salt
a swirl of fruity olive oil
why does fruity
autocorrect
to guilty?
human I laugh
too easily
am I funny
the nuns from my childhood
would say no
that girl never smiled
This poem first appeared in Lily Poetry Review.
—
Kyle Potvin’s debut full-length poetry collection is Loosen (Hobblebush Books, 2021). Her chapbook, Sound Travels on Water, won the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award, and her poem “After the Biopsy” won The Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry 2024—Sonnet Award. Kyle’s poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Tar River Poetry, Ecotone, Verse Daily and The New York Times. She is a peer reviewer for Whale Road Review.
