Poetry By Jeff Whitney

Alexander Heim CC




What Thou Lovest Well Remains American


You can be the center of your song but you can’t be the star 
says Willie Perdomo. I guess, if you like, you can also be 
the idea of a song, the blue ghost that haunts it, ten squirrels 
barking at the top of a tree. Which is a kind of stardom. 
Grow a terrible beard, the flock comes later. 
The game is write your own obituary 
and publish it in daily installments 
then call it your life. It’s Thursday, the dog 
is looking out the window like a philosophy
major. Yesterday for work I took a quiz that asked what words 
I identify with. Turns out I’m patient, conscientious, 
and a cooperative team member. Who is this for? 
is a great question to ask of almost anything. Like the word 
butyraceous, meaning to have the qualities of butter. In what scenario 
would you use it? My grandfather once guaranteed “One day you’ll wake 
in a different country, so better get funny.” “There’s a bull’s 
eye on your back and on your head so why not party 
til you’re dead?” And when I opened my door just now a hearse 
drove by with a novelty license plate: CU SOON. I bet 
the driver gets a kick, possibly something else, out of that. 
Like the married couple with death plots next to each other,
one with two dates, birth and death, while the other just a birth date, 
no death, and a single statement: “I won,” with the deceased partner’s 
in agreement: “She won.” A bench near a chapel says lift a thankful heart 
to god but after a while does god get bored of thankful hearts? 
Lift a chubby puppy, may be better, seven-hundred might 
do the trick. Or a cacophony of tarantulas. A realization 
of horses. My obituary says don’t love the world less 
love it different. For every well-funded military an astonishment
of flowers. A stupidity of flowers. “That’ll do, pig” 
of flowers, and god giving back our thankful hearts
bandaged and better. When presented two options find a third
a fourth, a fifth. An inheritance of flowers, a pandemonium 
of flowers. To not get swept away by the all-at-once-ness, the holy-
shit-ness, start with the first lesson from preschool or working 
customer service: if you want to say sorry, say thank you.

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​Jeff Whitney's most recent chapbook is Good Things Are Happening (GreenTower Press, 2026). Recent poems can be found or found soon in AGNI, Alaska Quarterly Review, Gulf Coast, and The Southern Review. A recipient of a 2025 NEA fellowship, he lives with his wife in Portland, OR. For more info, visit www.jeffwhitneypoetry.com.