In Praise of Praise

by Andrew Kozma

There is something in a man that loves abuse
and something in abuse that loves a wall
equally as it loves the fist punching its knuckles raw

against rough brick. There is something in me
that loves the doctors who can't remove it who love
the mystery they will be up to their shoulders in blood

to solve, but will never. There is something in a heart
that refuses to stop until it is done, and when it's done,
there is something in the eye that loves to stop looking

at what it is all the flies love when the heat loves
to spoil, spoils. There is something in the skin
that loves to burn, and something in fire that loves

the green flame of cellophane and loves the poisons released
for the unnatural beauty of their birth. In beauty,
there's something that loves the ugly, but holds its tongue.

Andrew Kozma's poems have appeared in 32 poems, Iron Horse Literary Review, Grist, and Subtropics, his non-fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, and his fiction will appear in DIAGRAM. His first book of poems, City of Regret (2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award, and he has been the recipient of a Houston Arts Alliance Fellowship, a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship, and a D.H. Lawrence Fellowship.