Cal Freeman


Philoxenia

Woke to snack in a cool place,
woke to last night’s news of the world
in the evening, Isherwood,

woke to Rzicznek’s non-proniminal
repetition of verbs in the initial
positions of his lines, woke

to steal a non-proniminal strategy (I)
from a friend, woke to a morning
I’d stayed awake to see the night before

(four hours or so ago), woke to the
anaphora of anaphora of middle age,
woke to trans and homophobic bigots

burning books in my town,
woke to Islamophobic bigots burning
Qurans in my town, woke to the pillory

of wokeness, woke to the chiasmus of
woke birds chattering in the riverain,
woke the sleeping dog of the civic

shirk, woke the courier with the only
serious philosophical question
chiseled on an Etruscan tablet

in his portmanteau, Camus,
woke to a bowl of strawberries
on a granite counter, woke

to rotted gourds with caving faces,
woke to new trucks doing ancient work,
woke to…woke to & woke to*

photo: Matt Balcer

Cal Freeman (he/him) is the author of the books Fight Songs (Eyewear 2017), Poolside at the Dearborn Inn (R&R Press 2022), and The Weather of Our Names (Cornerstone Press 2025). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals, including Atticus Review, Image, The Poetry Review, Verse Daily, Under a Warm Green Linden, North American Review, Willow Springs, Oxford American, Berkeley Poetry Review, and Advanced Leisure. He is a recipient of the Devine Poetry Fellowship (judged by Terrance Hayes), winner of Passages North's Neutrino Prize, and a finalist for the River Styx International Poetry Prize. He teaches at Oakland University and serves as Writer-In-Residence with InsideOut Literary Arts Detroit.

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