Tuesday 115: Poem

Milad

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedOne nervous night
a woman darkened
in her hat, her voice
like coldwet grass, sticks
in the backyard told me,
get a haircut. I burned,
tracing heroic names
in the familiar
rough sofa embrace of desire,

while Frank talked
about bicyclists
in the dull thud of morning
(though the sun
burned),
“They used to be lazy
and good-tempered.”

Now everybody’s doing
too much rushing around—
not that there aren’t countless reasons
to rush or worry
or burn down a chain
restaurant—overwhelmed
as we are
by all these little tokens
of appreciation—
and the knowledge

that it’s a person
for every moment
of your life.
It’s a person
for every two days I’ve been
alive.

Does this near star not jolt the brain
with a remoteness that charges
through the world?

Does her voice not echo
like the tock tock tock
of the puck in the ice rink
on this lazy and good-tempered
morning?

And even is it morning
yet? Does the sun
burn?

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