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a refrigerator
makes a lot
of sound
so does a bird
people are
always talking
full of love
& pain
we started
a fund
and the dogs
are needing
some money &
I don’t know
how to do
it & I’ll
learn from
one of them
Tom’s blue
shirt & glasses
are perfect.
My teeshirt
is good
my pen
works
I breathe.
Copyright © 2020 by Eileen Myles. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 3, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
I was so willing to pull a page out of my notebook, a day, several bright days and live them as if I was only alive, thirsty, timeless, young enough, to do this one more time, to dare to have nothing so much to lose and to feel that potential dying of the self in the light as the only thing I thought that was spiritual, possible and because I had no other way to call that mind, I called it poetry, but it was flesh and time and bread and friends frightened and free enough to want to have another day that way, tear another page.
Later the whole
generosity
of dogs & the
silver
sun. My loneliness
like a sash
that boat
in the distance.
Triangle
heart. Sylph
w a beard
got wet &
gleam-
ing black.
What I like
about you.
go deeper
now
into the
present
out there
with
the kid
on the swing
everybody
sit there.
Doesn’t
mean I'll be here
when I am.
the shape
of this
&her smell
&the shine in the small
lit room
to the boy
replace him
w you &
let me love
that shine
in you
let me.